2002-01-01,John Caird,An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion,Hardback,9781904303046,4.99,"John Caird can accurately be described as a Hegelian, but it would be wrong to assume from this that he simply regurgitated the ideas of his German master. In the first place he offers a distinctive reading of Hegel, one which is particularly designed to answer the religious questions of his day. It is thus very different from most modern readings. In the second place his Hegel is very well digested. Although he freely acknowledge his debt to him, he seldom refers directly to his writings, he does not use Hegelian terminology and his manner of exposition is entirely different. The present work provides a fascinating account of religion, a brilliant introduction to its philosophy, and a unique interpretation of Hegelian thought. It is a must for all enthusiasts of the philosophy of religion, students of Scottish philosophy, and scholars of Hegel or idealism more generally. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2002-01-01,Edward Caird,Hegel,Hardback,9781904303107,24.95,"The book is the analysis of the works of one important philosopher by another. Edward Caird is without doubt one of the leading Scottish philosophers of the late nineteenth century, and an important British Idealist. That his work (as with the work of other British Idealists) has been influenced by Hegel and other German Idealists cannot be denied. Yet it is not a straightforward influence, and one can discern Caird’s imprint in every passage of the present book. As a result of the presence of both personalities, Caird’s and Hegel’s, in the present work, the book is not akin to a scholarly analysis of Hegel written today. It is however, characterised by a remarkably smooth flow of its material. Caird takes us through Hegel’s life and all the influences that shaped his thought quite effortlessly. Hegel’s time at school and university, his years as a private tutor at Berne and Frankfurt, the period at Jena, his professorship at Heidelberg and Berlin, is described as lyrically as Hegel’s central philosophical concerns, from his thoughts on the central problem of philosophy to his logic. An important book for scholars of Hegel, of British Idealism, as well as for enthusiasts of either thinker.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2002-01-01,R. M. Wenley,Kant and his Philosophical Revolution,Hardback,9781904303169,24.99,"“The book is designed” writes the author in his preface, “to do the general reader a service and, of course, his demands concern the larger sweep of Kant’s thought rather than the minute details of the Critical Philosophy.” And Wenley’s style certainly corroborates this statement. His way of getting from the larger environment in which Kant lived to the circumstances in Kant’s life, and from there to his thought and its consequences, is penetrating but remarkably clear. And this clarity is evident as much in Wenley’s language as it is in the structure of the book. Attractive as all this makes the book for the general reader, Wenley’s scholarly nature does present itself at critical points making the work as useful to the Kant specialist or the historian of philosophy. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2002-01-01,Thomas Hill Green,Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation,Hardback,9781904303022,4.99,"The present work is Thomas Hill Green’s account of his conception of ‘the common good’ and its importance in determining a set of criteria that will give us the means to evaluate the conduct of political establishments. The principles of political obligation are all founded on this attractive idea of a common good, and Green is able to apply his principles to a wide range of matters from land law to personal freedom. How well the book succeeds in convincing the reader that a common good ought to act as a basis for evaluating the role of political establishments may be unclear. But there can be little doubt that the work is one of the most important contributions to political philosophy made by any English philosopher, and almost certainly the single most important contribution made by any British idealist. The book has attracted philosophers, sociologists, politologists and others since the day of its appearance, and continues to fuel lively debate today.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2002-01-01,Walter Pater,Plato and Platonism,Hardback,9781904303138,24.99,"“By Platonism,” the author clarifies, “is meant not Neo-Platonism of any kind, but the leading principles of Plato’s doctrine, which I have tried to see in close connexion with himself as he is presented in his own writings.” The critique here presented of Plato’s work is never independent of Plato as a man or Plato as philosopher, but rather enables Pater to study the close relation between author and text. The diversity of areas covered is in itself a fine achievement, and Pater is able to give each area enough attention to make it self-sufficient (each chapter was originally a lecture), yet at the same time, he succeeds in unifying all the areas to make for a well-structured book. Especially interesting are the chapter which explores the relationship between Plato and Socrates; the chapter on Plato’s aesthetics; the chapter on Plato’s Republic; and the chapter dealing with the relationship between Plato and the Sophists. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2002-01-01,R. M. Wenley,Socrates and Christ,Hardback,9781904303190,29.99,"“An attempt has been made,” writes the author in his preface, “to show that the development of Greek thought and the peculiar character of Judaism necessarily rendered Christ’s work different from that of Socrates. While dogmatic theology undoubtedly contains very many elements derived from Greek philosophy, Christianity at its source is in no wise Greek. Philosophy partly prepared the way for it, and originated not a few doctrines which afterwards became incorporated in Christian dogma. This, however, was only a secondary relationship.” In this attempt, the author avoids making any new groundbreaking assertions, and focuses instead on the main currents of scholarship that the two poles have attracted. In Wenley’s own words, “no pretence is made to trench upon disputed points of creed.” And this is what makes the book such a useful companion to anyone interested in obtaining an overview which is objective, informative, and all-encompassing. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2002-01-01,Andrew Seth,The Development from Kant to Hegel,Hardback,9781904303152,24.95,"The work is an important contribution to the study of German philosophy in the English speaking world. The first of two parts, the main core of Seth’s analyses of the works of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, was written in the summer of 1880 while the author was a Hibbert Travelling Scholar. The second part, a philosophy of religion, as this is derived from the conclusions of the first part, was written at the request of the Trustees. As the author declares in his preface to the 1882 edition, he restricts his attention to “the fundamental metaphysical position” occupied by the four thinkers. Fichte is given especially careful consideration, and a number of works by each of the philosophers that, at the time of writing, had been neglected, have been thoroughly scrutinised. It can quite fairly be said that Andrew Seth’s work played an important role in the formation of British idealism and its focus on German idealists such as the one’s under consideration here. But this role aside, the work is a brilliant analysis of German thought that will appeal even to the readers of today.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2002-01-01,W. H. Fairbrother,The Philosophy of Thomas Hill Green,Hardback,9781904303121,39.95,"As the author states in the prefatory note to this book, “the substance of the following pages was originally given, in the form of lectures, to students of philosophy at Oxford. It has been entirely recast and rewritten, as well as added to, but my object is the same, viz., a simple, plain exposition of the philosophic teaching of T. H. Green. Such an exposition ought to have a certain value of its own, but my real motive is to help the younger student to ‘read Green’ for himself.” As Green has enjoyed something of a revival in recent years, and as British Idealism slowly comes to the fore among philosophers and historians of philosophy, this book is a useful companion to those wishing to find their way to the thought of Thomas Hill Green. The author gives an account of the central themes in Green’s thought, including his metaphysics, his moral and political philosophy, and his thoughts on the ancient subject of freedom. In addition, Fairbrother concludes with an account of Green’s reception by his contemporaries.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2002-01-01,Francis Herbert Bradley,The Principles of Logic,Hardback,9781904303015,4.99,"The book is a new edition of the 1883 version of Francis Herbert Bradley’s Principles of Logic. Though annotations in the main text are minimal, a new introduction by William Moss places the work in context describing its early reception as well as its present-day importance. There can be no doubt that this text is pivotal for our understanding of the thought of the leading British idealist, and therefore of late nineteenth century philosophy in general. The author sketches in great detail his views in a large number of areas within logic, from the nature of universals and inference, to the laws and foundations of probabilities. The account makes use and criticism of the works on logic and related fields of his contemporaries, such as Sigwart, Lotze, Bain, and Venn. In his introduction, William Moss asks a few thought-provoking questions on Bradley's position and image in the tradition of analytic philosophy, focusing on whether indeed the traditionally held view that Bradley comes at the close of a period which is now very much behind us and of little use for philosophical activity today, is justified.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2003-01-01,Nicholas Rescher,Cognitive Idealization: On the Nature and Utility of Cognitive Ideals,Hardback,9781904303244,9.99,"Ethical idealization pivots on idealities in the sphere of human action. Cognitive idealization, by contrast, pivots on idealization in the sphere of our knowledge. Accordingly, the task of the present book is to consider the role of idealization in cognitive matters and to establish its utility in this realm. For the somewhat ironic fact of the matter is that our recourse to unrealizable idealities finds its explanation and justification in the substantial benefits that flow from such a proceeding. It is, ironically, in its utility that the rationale of ideality is to be sought. The book brings together lines of thought about the kinship between idealism and pragmatism that have occupied the author’s work for many years. ","""This intellectually stimulating volume successfully integrates different approaches to Critical Discourse Analysis with a range of Cognitive Linguistic approaches. It is unusual to see such a high degree of thematic integration between chapters that bring together theoretical reflection on metaphor and conceptualisation from a critical linguistic perspective. Together they enhance understanding of how language draws on cognition in both construal and understanding. The excellent and detailed index makes the volume highly accessible to a wide range of readers. "" —Jonathan Charteris-Black, Professor of Linguistics, University of West of England ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2003-01-01,Filip Spagnoli,Homo-Democraticus: On the Universal Desirability and the Not So Universal Possibility of Democracy and Human Rights,Hardback,9781904303268,39.99," The subject of the book - the universal value of human rights and democracy - is highly topical in view of the “democratic imperialism” of the current US-government. While leaving aside the problem of the acceptability of war as a means to promote democracy (e.g. the second Gulf War), the book focusses on a philosophical, moral and pragmatical defence of the universal application of democracy and human rights. Only if this defence is successful can the discussion on the means and tactics of democratic imperialism begin. The originality of the book is its defence of the universal value of both democracy and human rights. Whereas the defence of the universality of human rights has a long tradition, there is as yet almost no literature on the universal desirability of democracy. The defence is partly philosophical, ethical, political, legal and practical. It draws on the history of philosophy and ethics, as well as on political science. The book is directed at a general public interested in geo-politics and in the state of democracy back home. Politicians, lawyers, journalists and students may find it interesting. As it discusses important parts of the history of political philosophy, it can also be used as a textbook for university students in philosophy or politics.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2003-01-01,Borden Parker Bowne,The Essence of Religion,Hardback,9781904303176,29.99,"This is a collection of Bowne’s most important sermons, some of which appeared in other collections. It covers a remarkably large number of aspects of religion and faith, and summarises well the thought and achievements of this great preacher. The topics covered range from the role of Jesus Christ in religion and in our own lives, to the activities of the church, to Christianity as a doctrine, to the ways in which we can enjoy a healthy and successful life. The book will appeal to many, from the scholar to the relative newcomer to religion. It is lucid and flows easily, yet not without giving the reader much food for thought, and a new angle on many things he has probably thought and enquired about. In the words of the author’s wife, “ ‘if,’ to use the author’s own words, ‘the great end of religion is a developed soul, a soul with a deep sense of God, a soul in which faith, courage, and resolution are at their highest,’ then the writer of these sermons had in this life entered into the fullest realisation of all he taught to others.” And most readers will probably feel this after reading a few words of the first sermon.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2004-01-01,Filip Spagnoli,Democratic Imperialism,Hardback,9781904303398,29.99,"Once you accept that democracy and human rights are universally desirable and that they should be implemented and respected everywhere, the question remains how you can promote this universal respect. It is not because you accept universality that everyone accepts it. How can you turn the norm into a fact? How do you universalise democracy and human rights? And what are the actions you can take and the instruments you can use? This volume expounds a political philosophy which it applies in several key branches of politology, including international law, legislation, international monitoring, regional and global protection mechanisms, education, and seminally, democracy and human rights.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2005-06-01,Nathan Smith and Jason Taylor,Descartes and Cartesianism,Hardback,9781904303459,34.99,"Descartes is well known for his decisive and spectacular break with the philosophical tradition. Indeed, on account of that break, he is frequently reputed to be the “father of modern philosophy.” This reputation, in an important sense, seems deserved. The present collection, however, attempts to reevaluate the currency of this common opinion by attending to the impact of “Cartesianism” on philosophy from its immediate epicenter in 17th century science and metaphysics up to its continuing consequences today. In a larger sense, the volume aims to contribute to efforts underway in contemporary scholarship to arrive at a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of Descartes’ philosophical achievement as such. Accordingly, the essays in Part I address the character of Descartes’ originality with respect to the foundations, method and trajectory of his philosophical project, while those in Part II focus more exclusively on the lasting challenges which issue from that originality. The range and variety of approaches assembled in the collection are intended to reflect the complexity of Descartes’ own thought. The result is a volume which will be of interest to students of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and the history of philosophy as well as contemporary phenomenology, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. ","""The volume suggests a scholarly fascination with the fact that women travel authors did indeed discuss politics, and to a greater degree and depth than expected. The eight individual chapters are well written and thought provoking and may be useful for students, scholars, and instructors alike."" Beth Ann Muellner, College of Wooster in Women in German, 2011. ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2005-07-01,Barbara Gabriella Renzi and Stephen Rainey,"Noesis: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Language, Epistemology and Political Philosophy",Hardback,9781904303497,29.99,"In April 2004, the Queen’s University Philosophy Society and Postgraduate Seminar Group hosted a two day conference open to postgraduates in which students could showcase their latest work in an informed and critical environment. In previous years, this same kind of conference had been held in Dublin and so this was a first not just for Queen’s, but for Northern Ireland. Many papers presented over the two days went on to be published in noteworthy journals, an indication of the high quality on display. Given the number of papers presented, not all could be presented in this volume, but what follows is a selection of some of the best received papers, which cover areas as diverse as philosophy of science and mind, epistemology, political philosophy and ethics and a time span stretching from the classical era to modern analytic philosophy. With such a diverse group of philosophical minds gathered together, the chance to hear a new take on a familiar field, or to hear discussion of areas of philosophy one had never come across was not wasted. The diversity of the subject matter under investigation among these papers is the strength of this collection, as it introduces the reader to the vast range of important issues still pressing in philosophy today. The pieces are notable for the accessible way in which they get across effectively their often complex subject matter.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2005-10-01,Franz G. Riffert,Alfred North Whitehead on Learning and Education: Theory and Application,Hardback,9781904303572,44.99,"Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy is one of the most creative and promising approaches developed in the 20th century. Being a scholar who for most of his professional life worked in the fields of logic, mathematics, and physics it was one of Whitehead’s major intentions to exemplarily demonstrate the possibility of the creative interplay between metaphysics and other disciplines such as aestethics, ethics, theology and especially the single sciences. One scientific field which he never lost interest in during his whole life was education, a key domain for prospering societies. In this book a selection of 15 papers explores Whitehead’s educational ideas which are based on his radical process approach. Following the Introduction which presents Whitehead’s criticism of traditional education and the false psychology which it is based on, the book is divided into two major parts. The first part deals with Whitehead’s philosophically inspired alternative theoretical framework for learning and education. Special focus is layed on the concept of the learning process which according to Whitehead is essentially cyclic in nature. In the second part it is shown how Whitehead’s ideas can profitably be applied to different sub-domains within education: management education, college education and evalutation. The book shows that Whitehead’s process approach offers a promising alternative to traditional education. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2005-12-01,Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe,"The Future of Beauty in Theatre, Literature and the Arts",Hardback,9781904303596,29.99,"In recent years, philosophical debate of the concept of beauty has seen a remarkable renaissance. The twelve essays presented in this book provide a broad basis for a thorough reassessment of the European traditions of beauty in the arts (fine arts, performing arts, media arts) and in literature and film, not as a return to some distant, and allegedly ideal past, but as a constructive means of realising the potential of the arts for the 21st century. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-01-01,Damian Ilodigwe,Bradley and the Problematic Status of Metaphysics: In search of an adequate ontology of appearance,Hardback,9781904303558,44.99,"Bradley is a much neglected philosopher. The neglect is hardly justifiable, considering what Bradley actually wrote. However, the situation has improved in the last couple of decades, as there are signs of renewed interest in Bradley. Indeed, a basic consensus among Bradley scholars is the need for a reassessement of his philosophy and his place in the history of philosophy. In this interpretive and critical work, Ilodigwe undertakes an appraisal of Bradley’s philosophy. He argues that Bradley’s metaphysics of the absolute is the core of his philosophical system This means that we cannot understand Bradley’s philosophy unless we do justice to this aspect of his thought. Nor would it be possible to gain a full conspectus of the varied ramification of his thought if dissociated from the larger milieu relative to which they subsist and have their being. Unfortunately, much of the contemporary rejection of Bradley’s metaphysics is predicted on this sort of fragementary appreciation, as evidenced by Russell and James’s reception of Bradley. Bradley and the Problematic Status of Metaphysics tries to redress this imbalance. Ilodigwe here makes a case for a fundamental reassessment of Bradley’s philosophy by taking his account of the Absolute as point of reference for receiving other aspects of his thought. In keeping with this strategy, Part 1 and 2 focuses on a number of themes in Bradley’s philosophy such as his account of immediate experience, his theory of Judgement, his analysis of the essence of thought and his account of truth as appearance. In each case Ilodigwe shows how the themes illutrate a two-fold thesis that permeate Bradley’s thought: the claim as to the immanence of the Absolute in its appearances, and the further claim that the Absolute is irreducible to to any of its apperances. Part 3 relates Bradley’s philosophy to the situation of contemporary philosophy by assessing Russell and James’s appraisal of Bradley. ","This is a fine work which shows admirable knowledge of Bradley’s philosophy as well as displaying its own philosophical excellences. Written with fluent intelligence, it is a sympathetic reconstruction of Bradley’s philosophy which addresses the entire range of his work, taking the measure of it in the full. It displays significant familiarity with Bradley’s place in the history of philosophy, and is judicious in its assessments of both those directly influential on him, and major figures in the tradition of philosophy. It is marked by a very inclusive horizon, more inclusive than the great majority of commentators who tend to see Bradley in the British context, with now and then some ritual references to German idealism and Hegel. The work also contains very illuminating discussion of significant contemporaries such as William James and Bertrand Russell. It does sterling service in trying to bring Bradley into dialogue with contemporary thought. It affirms his continued relevance for the practice of metaphysics, not quite as surpassed as some of its critics claim. I recommend it very highly. William Desmond Institute of Philosophy Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Belgium ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-01-01,Timothy Madigan,Promethean Love: Paul Kurtz and the Humanistic Perspective on Love,Hardback,9781904303626,34.99,"The myth of Prometheus has inspired countless generations of humanists throughout the ages. Prometheus -- who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans to help them survive -- remains a symbol for those who reject theistic orthodoxies and who fearlessly challenge accepted beliefs. Artists such as Byron, Goethe, Beethoven and Wagner have been influenced by this story. Most importantly, Prometheus is a symbol for selfless love. In this collection of essays, the Promethean myth and its relationship to the philosophy of love is explored from its origins in Ancient Greece, to its similarities and contrasts with the figure of Christ. Special emphasis is given to the work and writings of Paul Kurtz, the foremost contemporary defender of humanism as a worldview, who has made the figure of Prometheus a special part of his own philosophy. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-01-01,J. Jeremy Wisnewski,Review Journal of Political Philosophy Volume 4,Paperback,978-1-4438-0022-8,19.99,"The Review Journal of Political Philosophy publishes high-quality work in moral and political philosophy, broadly-construed. The Journal prides itself on its eclecticism, not limiting itself to any particular tradition, school of thought, or historical period. We publish articles, reviews, and discussion pieces from leading and new scholars from analytic and continental perspectives, along with articles that bridge the gap between these traditions. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-04-01,Shlomo Shoham,Ark in the Authentic Domain,Hardback,9781904303770,34.99,"This volume is an innovative exposition of the person and teaching of Rabbi Johanan Ben Zakkai (the Rivaz), the 1st century Jewish sage who crossed the lines over to emperor Vespasian during the siege of Jerusalem. He proclaimed that for the Jews the learning of the Torah was even more essential than independence. Hence, he asked for permission to study the Torah at Jabneh, where after the destruction of the Second Temple he established the famous schools for religious studies. He is very controversial within Orthodox circles until this very day. However, we claim that he saved Judaism as it is studied and upheld throughout the generations of scholarship in the diasporas of Babylon, Spain, North Africa and Europe. The story and the saga of Rabbi Johanan Ben Zakkai is presented in this volume within the context of the history of the Jews and Judaism.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-04-01,Rossella Fabbrichesi and Susanna Marietti,Semiotics and Philosophy in Charles Sanders Peirce,Hardback,9781904303749,34.99,"The subject of this book is the thought of the American pragmatist and founder of semiotics, Charles Sanders Peirce. The book collects the papers presented to the International Conference Semiotics and Philosophy in C.S. Peirce (Milan, April 2005), together with some additional new contributions by well-known Peirce scholars, bearing witness to the vigour of Peircean scholarship in Italy and also hosting some of the most significant international voices on this topic. The book is introduced by the two editors and is divided into three sections, corresponding to the three main areas of the most interesting contemporary reflection on Peirce. Namely, Semiotics and the Logic of Inquiry (part I); Abduction and Philosophy of Mathematics (part II); Peirce and the Western Tradition. (part III). The analysis is carried out from a semiotic perspective, in which semiotics should not be understood as a specific doctrine but rather as the philosophical core of Peirce’s system. As we read in the introduction: “it is semiotics and philosophy or, rather, semiotics as philosophy and philosophy as semiotics, which emerge from a reading of these papers”. ","The authors are recognized scholars of Peirce, and their topics are varied so that the volume is well balanced in its variety. The inclusion of Colapietro and Houser alone is evidence of the level of importance of the publication. It is a welcome addition to literature about Peirce. I am also especially impressed with Sini's discussion of semiotics and continuity, a topic on which I once focused. The idea of tying in Peirce’s semeiotic with other aspects of his philosophy is an effort that has increasingly intrigued me for the past eight years or so. Your book should be of interest to advanced students and professors of philosophy and semiotics in particular. Carl R. Hausman The book is both a wide-range survey on Peirce’s thinking in its semiotical, epistemological and logical aspects, and an assessment of his complex and multiple interests, which cover nearly all disciplines in the Western tradition. Few collections of essays on Peirce have appeared in recent times and the community of Peirce’s scholars was in great need of an overview on the most debated questions and on the new directions taken by these studies. I am thoroughly convinced that this collection shows very clearly the importance of studying Peirce today. From semiotics to psychology, from fallibilism to linguistic analysis, from the philosophy of mathematics to the classical, the medieval and the Kantian heritage on semiotics, it offers a new and fresh look on Peirce, pointing in myriad and startling directions. Corrado Mangione, Professor of Logic, University of Milan ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-06-01,Shlomo Giora Shoham,"Art, Myth and Deviance",Hardback,9781904303886,34.99,"Myths have long been considered the prime linkage between nature and culture, but we hold that they are more than this. The mythogene, which is our conceptualization of a connecting structure, links subject and object, history and transcendence, but above all is the blueprint for creativity. The volume deals, therefore, with the innovative conception of the author as to the process of creativity. Van Gogh had a revelation as to how the whirling cypresses and dancing stars would look at night. These structures, which contain a complementarity between his experiences and longings, are then ingrained in the artistic medium. Since his artistic efforts were authentic, his ecstatic (in the Greek sense) state of mind, extricated itself from diachronic history and soared onto synchronic eternity. This is how we perceive his work as fresh, exhilarating and meaningful as if painted today; it is the communication within eternity of authentic art from artist to audience. The volume also presents a classification of types of artists as related to their art and presents and innovative theory as to the link between madness and creativity.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-06-01,Eric Chelstrom,Being Amongst Others: Phenomenological Reflections on the Life-world,Hardback,9781904303992,39.99,"Our world can be a bewildering place. The sense of awe and wonder at the states of affairs in which we find ourselves immersed give rise to philosophical questions. Philosophical reflection is a critical attempt to come to grips with our place in the world and the various problems we encounter in respect to the complexities encountered in everyday life. In the most basic terms, phenomenology is the study of the structures and relations of phenomena. Phenomenology begins from a descriptive analysis of our experiences of the world. It grants precedent to the first person perspective–how phenomena appear to consciousness. There are any number of problems related to the plenitude of kinds of experiences which confront us through the course of our lives, in addition to the structure of consciousness itself. This volume presents a variety of views on a number of the phenomena of our everyday lives, offering positions on such things from the nature of consciousness to the structures of religious or political experiences. Its appeal, however, should not be limited to philosophers alone–given that all persons can relate to the subject matter of the essays. For instance, one author asks, “what is friendship?” The present work may also be understood as a gesture toward bridging the division between the valuable insights of continental and analytic philosophical traditions. The authors include a combination of established academics, such as Jeffrey Wattles–the best-selling author of The Golden Rule–and young scholars from varied philosophical backgrounds. This collection is divided into four sections: (I) Foundational Elements of Experience; (II) The Experiencing Subject: What is it to be a Subject?; (III) Amongst Others: The Social World; and (IV) Social Objects and Institutions. Each section represents a level of experience, from the most basic structures of experience, to the subject’s experience of the world and objects in it, to experiences and interactions with others, ending at the results of the codifications of certain social practices and beliefs. The sections treat their respective topics principally, even if they share material with other essays. Our experiences of the life-world, the world of human praxis, contain a multiplicity of elements; the divisions of this work are meant to demarcate various types of phenomena, not to offer any definitive thesis regarding a hierarchy or structure of relations.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-06-01,David Ross,The Flesh of Being: On Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra,Hardback,9781904303923,34.99,"The text is a conversation between the author and himself mediated by the text of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The text is a pre-text, a reading both before and after that frames the art work. What is that? Let us say, in the spirit of inquiry, that of knowing thyself. What, then, of this strange hyphenation? The present text is a pre-text because it is before the Text, the text which the author is always writing but which manifests itself, in sporadic, impulsive bursts, in the form of actual works. The book is the pre-text because it is an excuse, a rationale, a piece of pretension. The book is not about Nietzsche but what it is for someone to read Nietzsche’s text, a book for everyone and no one. How then does one read a book meant for oneself, if oneself is everyone, and not at all for oneself, if oneself is none? Or is it that the real task of reading is for the reader to read what reading is? Then again, need one distinguish between book and text? Perhaps, it is impossible to read a book such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra without invoking the text --or even sub-text – that continually slips away. If one can read a book, one cannot the text for this reason: the text is what the reader has to write through the reading. This has been my experience with Nietzsche’s text, an experience I share with my readers. The very possibility of reading invokes the need to re-write the text. Only in the space between reading and writing can the reader/re-writer hope to stand and understand the discursive grounds. Is that the play which this couplet performs? There, does not the reader enters upon the playground. Read then and play! The author's thanks go to Mr. Andrew Fuyarchuk for the fine editing job that he did. His contribution allowed further clarifications of the argument. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-06-01,Ruben L.F. Habito and Keishin Inaba,The Practice of Altruism: Caring and Religion in Global Perspective,Hardback,9781904303954,34.99," The study of altruism and altruistic behavior has caught the attention of social scientists especially in recent years. What motivates individuals to cultivate attitudes and actions that promote the wellbeing of others at the expense of, or at the risk of negative consequences for their own? In our contemporary global society marked by conflict and violence among different sectors of the population in various regions of the world, and wherein religion can be a factor that exacerbates such conflict and violence, harnessing the power of religion towards directions of reconciliation, creativity, and altruistic action, remains a crucial task for humankind. This volume addresses a question especially relevant in our day: do people who profess religious commitment or affiliation in a particular religious community tend to nurture altruistic kinds of attitude and action more than others? Social scientists present results of their empirical studies on Japanese society, as well as on North American, European, Indian, and Thai societies, to focus on this issue and offer insightful reflections on the relationship between religion and society. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-06-01,Tomas Marvan,What Determines Content? The Internalism/Externalism Dispute,Hardback,9781847180117,39.99,"A distinguished team of fourteen European philosophers addresses the current debates on internalism versus externalism in the philosophy of language and mind. The main objective of the volume is to demonstrate the philosophical significance and fruitfulness of the internalism/externalism debate on a wide range of issues, and to do so in a manner which is sophisticated yet accessible to non-specialists. The issues authors deal with include linguistic deference, interpreting classical externalist thought-experiments by Putnam and Burge, the nature of Wittgenstein’s externalism, apriority, intersubjective externalism, and object-dependence of thought and temporal externalism. Some of the contributors try to strike a balance between internalist and externalist position.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-07-01,Ezio Di Nucci and Conor McHugh,"Content, Consciousness, and Perception: Essays in Contemporary Philosophy of Mind",Hardback,9781847180179,34.99,"What sort of thing is the mind? And how can such a thing at the same time - belong to the natural world, - represent the world, - give rise to our subjective experience, - and ground human knowledge? Content, Consciousness and Perception is an edited collection, comprising eleven new contributions to the philosophy of mind, written by some of the most promising young philosophers in the UK and Ireland. The book is arranged into three parts. Part I, “Concepts and Mental Content”, which begins with an attack by Hans-Johann Glock on the representational theory of mind, addresses the nature of mental representation. Part II, “Consciousness and the Metaphysics of Mind”, concerns the prospects for a naturalistic metaphysics of the conscious mind. Finally, Part III, entitled “Perception”, pursues the project of giving a satisfactory philosophical account of perceptual experience. The book begins with an introductory essay by the editors, which provides an overview of the state of contemporary philosophy of mind, locating the articles to follow within that context. The individual chapters of Content, Consciousness and Perception are professional contributions to their respective areas, of interest to any philosopher of mind. The volume as a whole is ideal for non-specialists and students interested in getting to grips with the state of the art in contemporary philosophy of mind. ","'If you want to know what the next but one generation of philosophers of mind are thinking about now, *Content, Consciousness and Perception* is a terrific place to look. This wide-ranging international collection is relevant to psychologists and cognitive scientists as well as philosophers.' Tim Williamson Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-07-01,Barbara Gabriella Renzi and Stephen Rainey,From Plato’s Cave to the Multiplex: Contemporary Philosophy and Film,Hardback,9781847180131,34.99,"This is a rich and varied collection of articles that both offer philosophical analyses of film and reflect on philosophical questions through film. The pieces range widely, from discussions of specific films and the work of particular directors, to reflections on cinematic techniques and on the medium of cinema in general. Here, cinema enters into a genuinely productive interaction with philosophy. We see how philosophical perspectives and methods are able to inform the critical analysis of film, how films can concretely explore and make use of philosophical perspectives, and how film can challenge and provoke philosophical reflection. Some of the articles address familiar themes in the developing philosophy and film literature in fresh ways, while others make surprising and revealing new connections between philosophical perspectives and cinema. Either way, the results are always interesting and illuminating, and demonstrate once again how fruitful the bringing together of philosophy and film can be. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-07-01,Anthony Barker,"Television, Aesthetics and Reality",Hardback,9781847180087,39.99,"This new collection of essays seeks to focus on three areas where television has recently been in an intriguing state of flux. Taking as our background the emergence of multimedia conglomerates and cash-rich cable channels, we look at the way old national terrestrial channels and the brash new internationally commercialized ones have innovated in the domain of television programming. In all there are fourteen original essays, an introduction to the book’s theme by the editor and a foreword by Professor Annette Hill. Section one “Realizing the Real” looks at contemporary patterns of television consumption and the presentational styles which package the real in news, current affairs and other ‘live’ television formats. Essays on rhetorical strategies in the news coverage of the war in Iraq, on national and international inflections of Sky News in Europe and coverage of the recent EURO2004 football tournament, as well the multi-channel reporting of a prominent paedophilia scandal, are presented in this section. They all analyse the extent to which the grounded and the local are threatened and distorted by hegemonic forces in media today. The findings of a comprehensive new study of Portuguese social practices and viewing habits are also featured in this section. Section Two “Realizing Performance” addresses the way new trends in reality programming and other documentary practices have impacted on fiction and entertainment television. There are essays on the recent wave of British television comedy heavily influenced by TV newsmagazine and fly-on-the-wall documentary styles and two pieces on new American series, 24 and CSI, which have revolutionized the narrative parameters and evidential base for thrillers and cop shows respectively, coming up with new ways to ‘perform’ space, time and science. Finally there is an essay on Nigel Kneale’s The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968), a survivor from the era of the single play who seems to anticipate the future of television in reality-based gameshow-style entertainment. Each of these essays shows that the success of these programmes is dependent on a fresh restylization of the conventions and formulas which govern mainstream television programming. They therefore see the representation of the real in fiction as primarily an aesthetic reappraisal. Section Three “Performing the Real” looks at the explosion in reality television programming itself. It focuses on the coming to pass of 70s and 80s theorists’ visions of both a passive voyeuristic society and one increasingly at peace with the notion of surveillance. We have been progressively acculturated to watching and being watched. Orwellian anxiety has given way to Baudrillardian acceptance of the message and the medium fused in a new order of mediated reality or hyperreality. Essays refer specifically to the globalization of shows and formats and their local inflections and to coverage of reality shows in print media and on the net. There are essays on The Bachelor and gender stereotyping, Joe Millionaire and the conventions of melodrama, and two on Big Brother, one on the problems of communication within a sealed environment and another on its reception in Portugal. Concerns about the self and its authenticity are consistency raised in all the essays of this section.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-09-01,Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir and Ólafur Páll Jónsson,"Art, Ethics and Environment: A Free Inquiry Into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature",Hardback,9781847180391,34.99,"Nature has been a recurrent theme in arts and philosophy for several decades. Nature is experienced in variety of contexts; artists have been enacting with nature as phenomena, material, space, environment, or simply as a place or an idea. In philosophy this is evidenced by an increasing interest in environmental ethics and aesthetics, as well as in philosophy of biology and metaphysics. In the 1960s, new affinities between art and nature developed and became among the characteristics of contemporary art. Environmental approaches became essential and artists were engaging the public closely with social and physical spaces. Generating processes rather than creating objects, both in nature as well as in the urban landscape, artists reintroduced art into nature and nature into art and opened up new ways of engaging environment, creating non-permanent artworks which produced a new understanding of creativity that following generations are still exploring. The distinction between art and nature became increasingly blurred at the same time as the ancient dichotomy of culture and nature became controversial. With the rise of environmental ethics in the 1970s, philosophers began discussing nature as an independent source of moral values, rather than a mere stage for moral life deriving its value from relations among humans. It has both been suggested that nature might have independent moral value, much like persons are thought to have such value, or that nature can be an active participant in a morally virtuous life. Both aesthetics of nature and environmental ethics have become established fields in contemporary philosophy with their distinct bibliography to draw on. But even if distinct, and properly so, these two new fields might be more closely related than often suggested. The aim of this collection is to bring together different trends in thinking about nature and value that are distinctive of these changing moods in art and philosophy and to juxtapose them with some other ways of thinking about these issues, such as economics and religion. The authors include Holmes Rolston III, Antje von Graevenitz, Roger Pouivet, Eric Palazzo and Emily Brady. The essays and artworks in this volume derive from the conference Nature in the Kingdom of Ends held in Selfoss, Iceland, on June 11th and 12th 2005.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-10-01,Trevor Curnow,Ancient Philosophy and Everyday Life,Hardback,9781847180421,24.99,"Ancient Philosophy and Everyday Life is an introduction to Cynicism, Stoicism, Epicureanism and Scepticism. After a general account of the nature of ancient philosophy, it looks at each of these four particular schools in turn, outlining their histories and their doctrines. Special attention is paid to how these philosophies formed the bases for distinctive ways of life in antiquity. It is shown how their founders not only articulated the fundamental ideas of their schools but also embodied them in their own lives. Some of the more colourful characters of ancient philosophy appear here, including Diogenes of Sinope who lived in a wine barrel and Peregrinus Proteus who died by climbing onto his own funeral pyre at the Olympic Games. Consideration is also given to whether it would be possible to live like an authentic Cynic, Stoic, Epicurean or Sceptic today and if so, how. The ideas of the schools are clearly explained with a minimum of technical jargon, making this an ideal introduction for anyone with an interest in the subject. ","""This is an honest little book. It presents each of the four main Hellenistic schools (Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics) in outline and then discusses the position each of them held in relation to a number of daily life issues... [Curnow] gives a minimalist version of the essential teachings of each school: it is commendable how much Curnow manages to pack in..."" Professor Antonia Macaro, Society for Philosophy and Practice; Practical Philosophy Magazine Issue 9.2, July 2008 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-10-01,Joel Tierno,Epistemic Evil,Hardback,9781847180599,34.99,"Epistemic Evil: A Third Problem of Evil makes several significant contributions to scholarship on the problem of evil. It defends an ontological formulation of the problem of evil that differs significantly from both the logical and the evidential formulations. It provides a detailed examination of the best-of-all-possible-worlds hypothesis and the relevance of that hypothesis to the problem of evil. It offers detailed criticisms of the arguments of many leading Christian apologists. Above all, however, it identifies a third problem of evil. Tierno calls this the problem of epistemic evil. This problem arises in the context of our efforts to make judgments about the world in which we live and about how we ought to human understanding, act in that world. Such judgments often lead, through no corrigible defect in the conduct of the agents who make them, to human suffering. There is no sense in which this suffering is deserved. Moreover, the erroneous judgments that lead to this suffering are neither actually nor potentially good for anything. These judgments therefore appear to be anomalous from the standpoint of the Judaeo-Christian creation hypothesis. Tierno carefully develops and forcefully defends the problem of epistemic evil. The result is a groundbreaking work in theodicy that should be of interest to all scholars who are seriously concerned with the problem of evil.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-10-01,David D. Kim,Georg Simmel in Translation: Interdisciplinary Border Crossings in Culture and Modernity,Hardback,9781847180605,39.99,"Though Georg Simmel considered himself a philosopher, his intellectual influence went well beyond the confines of one academic discipline at the turn of the last century. His writings on money, modernity, and the metropolis, as well as the artwork, female culture, and psychologism, left a significant mark on contemporaries like Walter Benjamin, Wilhelm Worringer, and Max Weber. Nevertheless, his name soon disappeared from public memory and scholarly discourse. In Georg Simmel in Translation, scholars from the Humanities and the Social Sciences cut through time and space to illustrate ways in which Simmel was, and still is, carried from one context to another. From Imperial Berlin to contemporary Singapore, they trace Simmel’s transgression of disciplinary boundaries in culture and modernity. The collected essays also explore the transformed presence of his scholarship in the works of more well-known artists, writers, and intellectuals between the second half of the nineteenth century and today. ","""This is a most exciting collection of explorations into a whole range of fields inspired and guided by the work of Georg Simmel. In every instance, these adventures by an international ensemble of young scholars cut across intellectual boundaries to produce new and challenging connections . With their focus upon issues in gender, urban existence, individuality, modern art and philosophy they not only capture the continued relevance of Simmel’s works for cultural formations but also break new ground in their substantive fields. This is a welcome and stimulating contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship."" David Frisby Professor in Sociology London School of Economics ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-10-01,David Ross,"Modernity, Postmodernity, and Posthumanity: Life is the Fiddle",Hardback,9781847180520,39.99,"In line with recent post-modern research, this text argues for a global change never before realized on such a scale. I refer to 21st century communism. Communism has not been defeated, only its relatively immature 20th century form. To cross from late capitalism to a sophisticated communism based upon the advances of the current conjuncture is a task for those who would live dangerously. Indeed, the waters of this crossing upon the river of time are deep. But the depth of a river is the imagination of those who dare cross it. The vessel of the crossing is theory. Without revolutionary theory,' said V.I. Lenin , there can be no revolutionary movement.' However, the production of theory has a social context, namely, the actual life practises of a world belonging to a specific conjuncture. The world is undergoing constant change, and theory must both reflect upon and reflect that. Guided by Marx's words and example, I have undertaken the task of fitting dialectics within contemporary scientific discoveries, beginning with chaos theory. A communism for the 21st century points to the possibility of order unfolding from disorder. According to this schema, it is necessary to hold both order and disorder as simultaneous realities while locating the dynamic of their operation vis-à-vis a substrate. I tentatively identify this textual body as the confluence of several strands, blending relations between different but complimentary elements: dialectical method (Plato-Hegel-Marx); the striving for social justice (Hebrew prophets and Marx) and; science (specifically fractal logic, chaos theory, general systems theory, string theory). ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2006-11-01,Gregory Minissale,Images of Thought: Visuality in Islamic India 1550-1750,Hardback,9781847180735,34.99,"Images of Thought is an entirely new approach to understanding non-Western art. Supported by a wide reading in anthropology, theology and philosophy, it provides an intellectual context for reading the visual language of Indian and Persian miniature art. By decoding artistic conventions, and with searching visual analyses, the book attempts to transform our understanding of art as an illustration of history to art as a reflection of the intellect. Images of Thought should be of interest to the general reader, students and scholars of art and critical theory, as it shows that one of the world’s richest painting traditions can offer important insights into issues of visual perception and intellectual production generally.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-01-01,David A. Ross,Being in Time to the Music,Hardback,9781847180872,49.99,"Being-in-time to the music from the ground up is a work in phenomenology, where this term is broadly defined, comprehending Plato, Heidegger, Hegel, and Marx. The most direct referent is Hegel, together with the theoretical revolution that he initiated with Phenomenology of Mind. This text’s more general purpose is to set the tone for a 21st communism based upon the idea of dancing with death, assuming full responsibility for one’s mortality, and abandoning the self to love as the meaning of existence. This dance is choreographed through my conversations with the above mentioned writers. In conversing with them I aim to displace (if not usurp) them from the throne of honour which is nothing more than the authority borrowed from me. By this I do not intend to deny completely their ‘other to me’ character. However, they exist or even ‘figure’ for me, both in the sense of of ‘count,’ having importance, as those that I read, and by which I read myself. They have borrowed my authority, namely, my own potential to be an author. So ‘reading them is to re-assume that borrowed authority. The life of the reader, to paraphrase Barthes, begins with the death of the author.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-01-01,Benoit Hardy-Vallée,Cognitive Decision-Making: Empirical and Foundational Issues,Hardback,9781847181077,24.99,"Cognitive Decision-Making is an interdisciplinary collection of essays in psychology, philosophy, neuroscience and biology about decision-making. While it has been a topic for economists, logicians and psychologists for many years, decision-making is gaining more attention now from a diverse array of approaches. In 2005, a conference was held at the Université du Québec at Montreal (UQAM) and allowed researchers from various fields to interact and discuss such issues. Cognitio 2005 was an occasion for philosophers, cognitive scientists and biologists to present the latest development in their discipline, and this book aims at providing a general overview of current research in the field of cognitive decision-making. This book is intended for scholars interested in the nature, modeling, evolution and substrate of decision-making.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-01-01,Susan Stuart and Gordana Dodig Crnkovic,"Computation, Information, Cognition: The Nexus and the Liminal",Hardback,9781847180902,39.99,"This book draws together a number of important strands in contemporary approaches to the philosophical and scientific questions that emerge when dealing with the issues of computing, information, cognition and the conceptual issues that arise at their intersections. It discovers and develops the connections at the borders and in the interstices of disciplines and debates, and presents a range of essays that deal with the currently vigorous concerns of the philosophy of information, ontology creation and control, bioinformation and biosemiotics, computational and post- computational ap- proaches to the philosophy of cognitive science, computational linguistics, ethics, and education. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-01-01,Richard Pine,"Creativity, Madness and Civilisation",Hardback,9781847180919,34.99,"What is ‘creativity’? And what is ‘madness’? How far can we interpret an artist’s work through our knowledge of his or her mental state, and how far can we infer a mental state from a work of art? When does a work of art cease to be a personal statement by the artist and become a matter of public concern? The contributions to this book attempt to answer some of these questions. They come from a wide range of disciplines and experiences – a practising psychiatrist, a practising artist suffering from reactive depression, and critics working in literature, film, music and the visual arts. The essays include discussions of the ‘myth of creativity’, the music of Robert Schumann, the borders of sanity in the writing of Lawrence Durrell, the ‘insane truth’ of Virginia Woolf, the meeting of doctor and patient in the poetry of Anne Sexton, mood disorders in the fiction of David Foster Wallace, love and madness in the poetry of Hafiz of Shiraz, and the paintings of Adolf Wölfli. Central to this discussion of creativity, madness and civilisation is the difficulty of establishing an appropriate and effective vocabulary and mindset between critics and clinical psychiatrists, which would enable them to work together in understanding mental disturbance in creative artists.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-02-01,Marion Kostanski,The Power of Compassion: An Exploration of the Psychology of Compassion in the 21st Century,Hardback,9781847181152,34.99,"We entered the 21st Century full of anxiety, with the promised threat of a millennium bug that could potentially cripple our lives. Since then we have witnessed an increasing level of angst and despair across the world as warnings of climate change, and economic hardships have been forecast. Wars have raged, a new evil has entered our consciousness, and the word “terrorism” has come to the forefront of our lexicon. Millions of innocent people have lost their lives. Today we are witnessing the ever-increasing state of displaced persons being shuffled from makeshift home to make shift home, being locked up in camps and cut off from the rest of society. Everywhere around us we hear about increases in depression and mental health disorders among the general population. Young people are checking out of the mainstream, there are phenomenal increases in the rate of suicide and older people are living out wretched lives, isolated and alone. Multinational corporations have been accused of extorting vulnerable peoples for economic gain and consumption seems to be our new idol. What is becoming of our society? How do we make sense of or world? The essays in this book provide a compelling insight and reflection into the work of health professionals as they struggle to make sense of their work and the world around them in this new century. From exploring the concept of Living Compassion, working with the good, bad and ugly aspects of our lives, and reflecting on practice, the authors discuss their ideas on compassion. They offer you, the reader, an opportunity to reflect on your own daily practice and to go forward with a sense of shared humanity.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-03-01,Soraj Hongladarom,Computing and Philosophy in Asia,Hardback,9781847181190,39.99,"This volume is a collection of selected papers presented at the Second Asia-Pacific Computing and Philsosophy Conference, which was held in Bangkok, Thailand in January 2005. The conference was organized by the Center for Ethics of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University on behalf of the International Association of Computing and Philosophy (www.ia-cap.org). Computing have had a long relationship with philosophy, starting from the problem of how symbols being manipulated in computing bear a relation to the outside world, to those of artificial intelligence, robotics, computer simulation, and so on. Moreover, as computer technologies have become thoroughly pervasive in today's environment, there are also issues concerning social and ethical impacts brought about by them. The papers in the volume represent a wide variety of concerns and various dimensions within which computing and philosophy are related. Furthermore, it also represents some of the first attempts to highlight cultural dimensions of computing and philosophy, which became prominent when the conference was held for the first time within the milieu of an Asian culture. (The First Asia-Pacific Computing and Philosophy was held in Canberra, Australia.) Hence, many of the papers in the volume address this added dimension. Apart form the usual problems of how computers and human lives are interconnected, the papers here also discuss how computers are related to human lives as lived in a specific culture. Thus the book breaks a new ground and should be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students who are interested, not only on computing and philosophy generally construed, but also on this exciting new dimension of how the cultures of Asia, the West, and others bear upon the traditional issues in computing and philosophy, and on how this dimension raises some new concerns and agenda. Among the topics discussed in this volume are: political online forums in Saudi Arabia, e-democracy and structural transformation of public sphere, the Buddhist informational person, a glance into the lives of computerized generation in Thailand, technology and journalism in the market, local approaches and global potential (?) of information ethics, computer-enhanced good life, computer teaching ethics, and many others.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-03-01,Thomas Jay Oord,The Many Facets of Love: Philosophical Explorations,Hardback,9781847181237,34.99,"Poets, theologians, romantics, scientists, and revolutionaries alike have explored the many facets of love. Judging by the wide use of the word “love” and the high praise it typically receives, we might think that philosophers have thoroughly analyzed love. But this is not the case. This book takes a step toward rectifying the neglect of a philosophical analysis of love. It brings together fifteen philosophical perspectives that explore some of love’s most important facets. Most of the essays have theistic or religious concerns in mind.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-05-01,"Leonid Dorfman, Colin Martindale, and Vladimir Petrov",Aesthetics and Innovation,Hardback,9781847181879,44.99,"In this book we attempted to gather together a set of chapters that describe new ways of approaching questions about aesthetics and innovation. Rather than going over old ground, the chapters describe attempts to break out in new directions. The book begins with a description of von Ehrenfel’s development of a Gestalt theory of aesthetics so evocative of the Vienna of 1900 that readers will wish that they had been there to experience the intellectual excitement and ends with a survey the very latest research on brain scan research on perception of art. In between, we encounter chapters as diverse as a description of cognitive effects on art perception and on the analogies between oscillations in art history and waves in the physical world. About half of the book contains chapters by well known western psychological aestheticians and half chapters by Russian scholars many of whom will be new to western readers. As well as describing new methods and results, the chapters by Russian scholars will be novel to most western readers, because the Russian perspective on aesthetics and innovation is rather different than the traditional western perspectives. Looking at phenomena from new viewpoints never hurts and very often helps in science. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-05-01,Vasil Gluchman,Morality of the Past from the Present Perspective: Picture of Morality in Slovakia in the First Half of the Twentieth Century,Hardback,9781847181718,34.99,"The monograph is divided into four parts. The work starts with Preface in which Vasil Gluchman presents socio-political, socio-cultural and ideological context of the first half of the twentieth century and the situation in Slovakia (and Central Europe) in this historical period, placing this monograph and the works of individual contributors into the context of the given era. The first part deals with philosophical and ethical issues arising from the examination of morality at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. This part creates the methodological starting point for the examinations presented in the next three parts of the monograph. The second part focuses on the development of philosophical and ethical reflection of morality in Slovakia in the given era. The third part examines socio-political and professional-ethical aspects of the development and functioning of morality in Slovakia in the first half of the 20th century. Reflections of morality in Slovakia in the Slovak literature of the first half of the 20th century are the object of interest in the fourth part of the monograph. ","This is a book that needed to be written and that needs to be read because it engages reflection on morality learned by a people who endured and survived magyarization – commonly referred to in our own time as ethnic cleansing, cultural genocide, and/or forced ethnic assimilation. It may even give pause for reflection to readers who see themselves as personally untouched by this misery – but are active promoters of nothing but the virtues of pluralism – to wonder whether pluralism is a contemporary way of eliminating unwanted ethnic groups by homogenization of all to pluralism. This book is not a collection of lessons from history but a chorus of voices that offer an honest, serious, yet refreshing and insightful understanding ourselves, society and culture. There are uncommon paradigms to consider in these articles that can enhance anyone’s sense of living in reality. Vasil Gluchman’s article on the important personality of “Martin Razus, A Philosopher and Ethicist,” is a case in point. Razus explains that the most important lesson to learn is “to accept blows” to build oneself as being above all images of the world that would render one unhappy and harmed. Pain belongs to life as a shadow belongs to an object in the sun. There are powers of “ruination” in life but the motto of a person must become: “Do not give in to life [ruination].” Rather, learn to orient your life on the development of creativity and productive powers that lie within and offer you possibility – of self-cultivation and self-development. This collection covers a wide academic range of subject material, from meta-ethical and theological reflections, to problems of alcoholism, family, and work to moral aspects in literature that put morality at center stage in the human experience, all of which are united by the furnace that was the Slovak experience of ethnic cleansing. Howard M. Ducharme, D.Phil. Professor & Chair, Philosophy Department University of Akron USA ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-05-01,Corinne Noirot-Maguire with Valérie M. Dionne,"""Revelations of Character"": Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy in Montaigne",Hardback,9781847181671,34.99,"The untranslatable and intriguing notion of ethos (mores, goodness, character, etc.) contrasts in Ancient rhetoric with pathos and logos, the other two pisteis or means of persuasion. Rhetorical ethos is characterized by ambivalence; is it essentially extra- or intra-discursive? an effect of the soul or an effective simulacrum? stable or circumstantial? As a discursive image, an artefact of speech, ethos remains problematic in its legitimacy. As shown in this volume, Montaigne’s readings of Ancient theories of ethos resonate in the Essais. The rhetorical effectiveness of Plutarch and Socrates versus Brutus and Seneca, for instance, is assessed in terms of ethos and a revealing style. Montaigne weighs rhetorical and ethical theories as he judges the writings of others, stages diverse types or characters, and develops in his book his own notion of ethos, paradoxical and dynamic, changing as is our soul. A variety of ethe narrated or enacted are also examined: Stoic figures and philosophers, generals, courtiers and honnêtes hommes, Indians, tragic heroes and heroines, among others. This collection of essays, beyond Montaigne studies, contributes to intellectual history, and to rhetorical, ethical, and political inquiry, for the early modern period and beyond. Montaigne’s quest for more human and humane modes of expression and action can be better understood in light of the notion of ethos, which raises issues of representation, subjectivity, social interaction, moral philosophy, politics, pragmatics, anthropology and identity. The contributors to this volume offer fresh new voices in “the art of conversation” about the Essais as they explore the many ramifications of Montaigne’s ethos and the manifold ethe he brings forth. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-05-01,Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski,"Santayana and America. Values, Liberties, Responsibility",Hardback,9781847181817,34.99,"George Santayana (1863–1952), a Spanish-American philosopher, is an influential personage on the cultural stage in English- and Spanish-speaking countries. His numerous books and papers on topics as varied as epistemology, ontology, aesthetics, ethics, anthropology, value theory, and American studies, along with his best-selling novel, his sophisticated poetry, and his famous autobiography, make him a vivid and profound source of reflection on the history of American and European thought, as well as a stimulus for future work. Santayana’s exceptionality was appreciated by William James and Josiah Royce, his most eminent colleagues in Harvard University’s Department of Philosophy, and has been discussed by such respected authors as John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Charles Hartshorne, Eric Voegelin, Alfred Schutz, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, Arthur Danto, and Ferdinand Savater, among others. This book aims to understand Santayana by considering his often provocative views on America. Other scholars have reconstructed his thought at various times and in a variety of ways, but no one has yet considered Santayana’s approach toward America in a serious and profound way (at least not in the English language). This book attempts to convince the reader that the impartiality of Santayana’s philosophy, its transcendence of cultural limits and mental borders, makes it a living philosophy, and that this is the strongest aspect of Santayana’s thought. ","“ProfessorSkowroñski's is a fresh and refreshing voice in American philosophy. He brings novel perspectives to the study of Santayana, and through that to understanding America. In Skowroñski's work, as in Santayana's, European and American influences combine to yield new insight. He explores the relevance of American philosophy for the study of Europe, America and their interaction with impeccable scholarship and unflagging energy. He leaves his readers heartened and enlightened.” -John Lachs, Centennial Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA “Santayana's notion of the genteel tradition in American society was well-known in his day and is of historical interest. His comparison of vacant freedom with vital liberty is little known, but is timely and important today. Issues of both kinds are joined by Professor Skowroñski in a comprehensive, balanced discussion that is thoroughly reliable and highly readable. He combs through the vast corpus of Santayana's writings, as is necessary with Santayana, to get a full and just view, and couples this with a remarkable collection of sometimes unexpected secondary sources. The scholarship is outstanding, the point of view original and interesting. Skowroñski applies careful scholarship and a fresh perspective to write a significant new study of an important but neglected philosopher.” -Angus Kerr-Lawson, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pure Mathemathics and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo, Canada; President of The Santayana Society, Editor of “Overheard in Seville: Bulletin of the Santayana Society”. ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-05-01,Matthew Caleb Flamm and Krzysztof Piotr Skowroñski,Under Any Sky: Contemporary Readings of George Santayana,Hardback,9781847181664,34.99,"Under Any Sky: Contemporary Readings of George Santayana is a testament to the cross-cultural relevance of the work of one of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century, George Santayana (1863-1952, birth name Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana). A list of geographic origins of the twenty-two contributions contained in this volume indicates the transatlantic cultural diversity of scholarly representation: scholars variously hailing from Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Slovakia, and Switzerland, and from the United States, representing three of its major regions. The authors explore the major plots of Santayana's thinking, including materialistic Platonism in ontology, skepticism in epistemology, rationality in social philosophy, naturalism in aesthetics, piety in materialism, and literary and poetic expression as a means to cosmic understanding. After a preface by Professor John Lachs (also a contributor), and an editorial introduction, the book is divided into three respective thematic parts: I. Ontology and Naturalism; II. Culture, Society, America; and III. Aesthetics, Poetry, and Spirit. Before each thematic section brief introductions of the section papers is provided to accommodate specific scholarly interests. The authors entrust the present volume to readers appreciative of the philosophic catholicity of the subject's work, invoking the book title which is taken from the preface of Santayana's mature system of philosophy, Scepticism and Animal Faith: ""In the past or in the future, my language and my borrowed knowledge would have been different, but under whatever sky I had been born, since it is the same sky, I should have had the same philosophy"" ","“Santayana's ‘holistic interpretative approach’ is alive in this collection of essays from an international group of scholars. This book makes a convincing case for the cross-cultural relevance of George Santayana as philosopher, poet, and critic. The scholarship is of the highest standard, and the contributors represent a rich variety of cultural perspectives. The thoughtful editing appreciates the breadth and depth of both the thinker and the present contributions. The essays take up Santayana's philosophic vision from their variety of cultural and intellectual perspectives and suggest important possibilities for humane intellectual life in the 21st century.” -Professor Marianne S. Wokeck, Santayana Edition, Director and Editor; Kristine W. Frost, Santayana Edition, Assistant Director and Associate Editor; Dr. Martin Coleman, Santayana Edition, Associate Editor; Professor Paul Nagy, Santayana Edition, Consulting Editor. “Among philosophers of our own time, George Santayana enjoyed the rarest of distinctions in being immortalized in Wallace Stevens' long poem ‘To an Old Philosopher in Rome.’ The present volume, justly international in scope and exhibiting the breadth, depth, and pace of progress in the burgeoning field of Santayana Studies, marks the most contemporary tribute to the philosopher whose ‘life in the spirit’ ranged across continents and centuries.” -Professor David Dilworth, State University of New York at Stony Brook ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-06-01,Piotr Cap and Joanna Nijakowska,Current Trends in Pragmatics,Hardback,9781847182074,39.99,"The volume brings together twenty articles written by established linguists, language philosophers, sociologists and psychologists, sharing their academic interest in a broad and interdisciplinary field of linguistic pragmatics. The collection consists of four thematic parts: “Pragmatics and Cognition,” “The Semantics-Pragmatics Interface,” “Conversational and Text Analysis” and “Pragmatics, Social Research and Didactics.” It aims to contribute to the debate on the present-day status of pragmatics, by examining three fundamental issues. The first involves the question of the current explanatory power of pragmatics, namely, how successful is the existing apparatus of pragmatics and the basic-level parameters (theories of speech acts, relevance, implicature, presupposition, deixis, politeness, etc.) in the elucidation of various aspects of meaning. The second issue involves the methodological assistance that pragmatics might need in order to enhance its explanatory power. The third has to do with the fuzzily defined boundaries of the discipline of pragmatics and the resulting temptation for analysts to concentrate solely on its fragmented sub-domains. As the collection unfolds, these issues form a continuum which, it seems, is often a process that a linguist goes through as his or her methodological awareness deepens. Thus, the orientation of the volume towards the analyst and the analytic mind-set, as well as the attempted balance in presentation of the alternative approaches, seem the major theoretical characteristic of the book. ","""This anthology excellently illustrates the current understanding of pragmatics as a multidisciplinary approach that involves the relationship between cognitive processes, socio-cultural facts, and language use and language form. With its twenty chapters this impressive volume presents a wide-ranging, lucid and stimulating state-of-the-art overview of key theoretical issues, empirical research, and various forms of analyses of linguistic phenomena within the field of linguistic pragmatics. Moroever, it also emphasizes the relevance of pragmatics for other social, especially political and applied research. It is a valuable contribution to pragmatics and will be of interest for many students and scholars in many disciplines"". Prof. Dr. Gunter Senft Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen Senior Editor of Pragmatics: Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-06-01,Jeremy Wisnewski,Moral Perception (also available as Review Journal of Political Philosophy Volume 5),Paperback,978-1-4438-0021-1,19.99,"The Review Journal of Political Philosophy publishes high-quality work in moral and political philosophy, broadly-construed. The Journal prides itself on its eclecticism, not limiting itself to any particular tradition, school of thought, or historical period. We publish articles, reviews, and discussion pieces from leading and new scholars from analytic and continental perspectives, along with articles that bridge the gap between these traditions. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-06-01,Ian Copestake,The Legacy of William Carlos Williams: Points of Contact,Hardback,9781847181947,39.99,"The essays in The Legacy of William Carlos Williams collectively examine the reasons for Williams’s continued importance to the work of a diverse range of American poets, and to the development of distinct branches of poetics throughout the twentieth century and beyond. As well as contextualising Williams’s relationship to emergent cultural trends and ideas that influenced American poetry during his own lifetime (modernism, abstract expressionism, pragmatism, surrealism), the book highlights his impact on poets as diverse as Louis Zukofsky, Robert Creeley, Frank O’Hara, Michael Palmer, Lorine Niedecker and Rae Armantrout. The essays contained here help shed light on contemporary trends in American poetry by re-examining Williams’s own work from the perspective of those who embodied his example to forge divergent traditions. ","“Williams is as exciting, mysterious, problematic, and tonic now as he ever was. He is the poet who opens doors—onto language and onto our practice of everyday life. He continues to open new doors in a new century, as the fascinating and illuminating essays in this collection suggest anew.” From Steven Gould Axelrod’s Preface. ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-07-01,Robert Wilkinson,New Essays in Comparative Aesthetics,Hardback,9781847182227,34.99,"Comparative aesthetics is the branch of philosophy which compares the aesthetic concepts and practices of different cultures. The way in which the various cultures of the world conceive of the aesthetic dimension of life in general and art in particular is revelatory of profound attitudes and beliefs which themselves make up an important part of the culture in question. This anthology consists of entirely new essays by some of the leading, internationally recognised scholars in the field. The subjects addressed include the influence of Upanişadic thought on the classic Indian tradition in aesthetics and the way in which that tradition continues to have relevance to issues discussed today; how Buddhist thought in general and Zen in particular shape aesthetic attitudes in Japanese culture; how Confucianism affected not only the morality but also the classical aesthetics of China; how different ideas of the self and of human nature affect artistic training and practice in different cultures; how feminism can draw inspiration from classic non-European lines of thought in the area of aesthetics, and how different attitudes to nature underpin a whole range of aesthetic beliefs and attitudes in western and eastern thought. These ideas reveal both deep differences and deep similarities between east and west. No-one seeking to understand the cultures discussed in these essays can ignore their aesthetic dimension, which often holds the key to understanding the deepest motives which have formed them.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-07-01,Elizabeth Wren-Owens,Postmodern Ethics: The Re-appropriation of Committed Writing in the Works of Antonio Tabucchi and Leonardo Sciascia 1975-2005,Hardback,9781847182340,34.99,"Postmodern Ethics offers a new perspective on debates surrounding the role of the intellectual in Italian society, and provides an original reading of two important Italian contemporary writers, Leonardo Sciascia and Antonio Tabucchi. It examines the ways in which the two writers use literature to engage with their socio-political environment in a climate informed by the doubts and scepticism of postmodernism, after traditional forms of impegno had been abandoned. Postmodern Ethics explores ways in which Tabucchi and Sciascia further their engagement through embracing the very factors which problematized traditional committed writing, such as the absence of fixed truths, the inability of language to fully communicate ideas and intertextuality. Postmodern Ethics provides an innovative new reading of Tabucchi’s works. It challenges the standard view in critical literature that his writing may be divided into ‘engaged’ texts which dialogue with society and ‘postmodern’ texts which focus on literary interiority, suggesting instead that socio-political engagement underpins all of his works. It also offers a new lens on Sciascia’s writing, unpacking why Sciascia, unlike his contemporaries, is able to maintain a belief in literature as a means of dialoguing with society. Postmodern Ethics explores the ways in which Tabucchi and Sciascia approach issues of terrorism, justice, the anti-mafia movement, immigration and the value of reading in connected yet distinct ways, suggesting that a close genealogy may be drawn between these two key intellectual figures. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-07-01,Erik S. Roraback,"The Dialectics of Late Capital and Power: James, Balzac and Critical Theory",Hardback,9781847182265,34.99,"This essay offers up a provocative new theoretical tack on the topic area of the dialectic of capital, the dialectic of cruelty, and the dialectic of power and of their intricate and self-differential inter-relationships and forms of being, under late capitalism, as delineated in selected narratives of two major Occidental novelists, Henry James and his key paper friend, Honoré de Balzac; it does so from a genuinely inter-disciplinary perspective that draws from heterogeneous waves of critical theory broadly conceived, having thus something to say to contemporary culture both of general and of academic interest alike. Key concepts elucidated and fleshed out in the work for the first time in a volume-length and systematic way in the study of the humanities, in order to get the show on the road, include the theoretical notions and arguments of true power and capital as ‘un-power’, ‘non-power’, ‘un-capital’, and ‘non-capital’; other suchlike examples punctuate the essay that attempt to meet precise theoretical and practical requirements for a twenty-first century increasingly submitted to the logic of capitalist power. The present study also thus offers new ways of thinking about the enormous and age-long subject of big power and capital that would, in the final tally, want to align itself with such prophetic traditions of thought as what Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, for example, have termed ‘the New Earth’. ","“This book makes fascinating and long-overdue connections between Balzac’s and Henry James’s literary treatment of money - money both as an economic fact and as a metaphor and symbol. Dr Roraback’s astute analysis is pioneering, and should be read by all experts on these two authors as well as by anyone who has an interest in the post-1800 novel”. --Alison Finch, Professor and Senior Research Fellow, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, author of Women’s Writing in Nineteenth-Century French (Cambridge Studies in French) (Cambridge University Press) “very sensitively and well written […] a most interesting project” --Stephen A. Erickson, Professor of Philosophy and the E. Wilson Lyon Chair of Humanities, Pomona College, author of The (Coming) Age of Thresholding (Kluwer Academic Publishers) “an important new vision of Henry James […] Roraback’s compelling use of contemporary theory pitches his book to a wide reading audience [...] an important work of literary scholarship, which will contribute significantly to a number of intellectual fields” --Henry B. Wonham, Professor of English, University of Oregon, co-editor Tales of Henry James (Norton Publishing Company) ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-08-01, Fabio Vighi and Heiko Feldner,Did Somebody Say Ideology?: On Slavoj Žižek and Consequences,Hardback,9781847182357,39.99,"Did Somebody Say Ideology? explores the philosophical, political, and psychoanalytic foundations of Slavoj Žižek’s work, almost two decades after his arrival on the international scene of contemporary philosophy with The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989). The book generally focuses on the understanding and applicability of Žižek’s theory of ideology, arguably the distinguishing and most original feature in his oeuvre so far. The first part contains six essays that carry out specific investigations into key aspects of the Slovenian philosopher’s work; the second part practices Žižek’s own injunction about Lacan (“discover Lacanian themes everywhere!”) on Žižek himself, employing his theories in different contexts and relating them to other thinkers. Each study in the present volume testifies to the extraordinary vitality of Žižek’s writing, demonstrating how his psychoanalytic brand of ideology critique fosters innovative research in a variety of intellectual fields and academic disciplines. ","The book has a great deal to offer to undergraduate and postgraduates students of Žižek’s extremely impressive oeuvre. But it will also be of great use to academics and everybody else interested in philosophy, cinema, feminism, psychoanalysis, radical politics and nationalism in the Balkans. The detailed exposition of Žižek is masterfully complemented by detailed discussions of Badiou, Bataille, Deleuze, Foucault and Lacan. Did Somebody Say Ideology? On Slavoj Žižek and Consequences is likely to be one of the most important books on Žižek in recent years and an original contribution to contemporary social theory. Darrow Schecter University of Sussex ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-08-01,Rhoda Sirlin and James L. W. West III,Sophie’s Choice: A Contemporary Casebook,Hardback,9781847182371,29.99,"Sophie’s Choice: A Contemporary Casebook is a collection of interpretations and reactions to William Styron’s famous 1979 novel of the Holocaust. Sophie’s Choice won the American Book Award and sold more than three million copies worldwide, but the novel has remained controversial­for its perceived treatment of women, its mixing of sexual comedy with high tragedy, and its legitimacy as an examination of the Holocaust. The items in the casebook are divided into three sections: Sexual Politics, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and Silence. Contributors include Pearl K. Bell, Gloria Steinem, Carolyn A. Durham, Barbara T. Lupack, Richard L. Rubenstein, Cynthia Ozick, Bertram Wyatt-Brown, and Elie Wiesel. The collection is framed by a foreword and an afterword, both by Styron. This casebook will be useful to teachers, students, and scholars; it brings together important commentaries on Sophie’s Choice, focuses discussion on key themes and issues, and argues for the central place of the novel in late twentieth-century literature.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-09-01,Zdenek Penkala,Life as an Experiment,Paperback,9781847182852,19.99,"We cannot live a full life unless we know who we are, unless we know the essence of our being. The sciences, which have been immensely helpful in the way in which we live our lives, have been helpless when it comes to telling us how our life should be lived and what its meaning is. Accepting any philosophical or religious belief, on the other hand, limits our freedom to learn directly from personal knowledge of reality, as any preconceived ideas do not only alter its perception, but limit the spectrum of possibilities to which our reason can be applied. To those who do not surrender their right to decide for themselves what reality is, life offers a unique opportunity to apply their insights both in the worlds within and without and either validates or disproves their findings. If they are true to themselves, the continuous feeedback life offers will reveal to them unique characterics of our mind, which are otherwise limited by its own beliefs.",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-09-01,David Ives and David A. Valone,Reverence for Life Revisited: Albert Schweitzer's Relevance Today,Hardback,9781847182609,34.99,"This book is the product of a conference held by the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Quinnipiac University in 2005. The conference re-examined the life and work of Albert Schweitzer, particularly his idea of ""Reverence for Life,"" and assessed the relevance of his ideas for the twenty-first century. The essays in this book represent various perspectives on Schweitzer's life and works, including: reminiscences from individuals who worked with or were directly influenced by Schweitzer's life, including Jane Goodall (who was the keynote speaker at the conference); philosophical examinations of Schweitzer's ideas in light of present concerns; and practical applications of Schweitzer's ideas to current problems in global issues including arms control, medical ethics, education, and state building. The essays represent perspectives drawn from individuals of diverse backgrounds (from undergraduate students to professional academics, as well as those engaged in diplomacy, wildlife conservation, and health care), and from the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Africa. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-09-01,Ann Ward,Socrates: Reason or Unreason as the Foundation of European Identity,Hardback,9781847182661,34.99,"Socrates is widely regarded as the first philosopher to investigate not simply the natural world but to make human and political questions concerning justice, virtue and the good life central to rational inquiry. Thus, Socratic philosophy is often viewed as taking a rationalist approach to human narratives and becomes a narrative itself. After Socrates the prevailing view of what defines the Greeks and those commonly regarded as their descendents, the Europeans, is their civilizational foundation in philosophic rationalism. The Socratic conception of Greek and European identity has not gone unchallenged however. In antiquity the comic poet Aristophanes lampooned Socrates as impious and unjust and cast doubt on whether the Socratic way of life was an appropriate basis for politics. Examples from more recent times include the ambiguous place that Socratic philosophizing holds in the philosophies of Hegel, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. The re-assessment of Socratic rationalism in the 19th century has led a to a “post-modern” suspicion of “grand narratives.” The radical critique of Socrates as the remote but powerful source of the priority assigned to reason in the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment(s) has shaken European faith in scientific, social and political progress. The European mind is left longing for a unifying narrative that crystallizes the European identity. Can Socratic philosophy survive the powerful challenges made in the name of history, faith and art? Does Socratic philosophizing adequately sustain political life in the face of such challenges, and does it prioritize reason over other human ways of knowing and representing their world? Alternatively, do the positions of later thinkers offer superior ways to understand the human person and develop political communities? This volume addresses these and related questions as it seeks to recover and revise our understanding of Socratic philosophy as an appropriate paradigm for European identity. It takes an interdisciplinary and international approach with contributions from scholars in the fields of philosophy, classics, religion, English and political science. The contributors teach and research in Europe, Canada, the United States and Iran. ","""A remarkable collection of essays by distinguished international scholars who use Socrates as a point of departure to explore the philosophic roots of Western civilization and European identity. While Socrates emerges as a hero, he is a Socrates whose philosophic rationality comprehends the broad spectrum of human emotional, aesthetic, historical, and spiritual life. The volume challenges contemporary thinking about the Greeks, about reason, and about the future of the West."" Mary Nichols, Chair and Professor of Political Science, Baylor University ""In this volume scholars from an unusually rich diversity of disciplines and of national backgrounds join in fruitful and challenging dialogue, wrestling with the question of the tenability of the Socratic rationalist foundation of European identity. The challenges to Socratic political philosophizing posed by contemporary historicist, faith-based, and artistically inspired thinking are squarely faced; and, in this light, the strengths and the weaknesses of a revived Socratic rationalism, as a response to the need for a spiritual reunification of the West, are deeply explored."" Tom Pangle ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-10-01,Peter Baofu,"The Future of Aesthetic Experience: Conceiving a Better Way to Understand Beauty, Ugliness, and the Rest",Hardback,9781847183194,39.99,"Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many, Dr. Peter Baofu argues that the current popularity of postmodernism in the humanities (especially though not exclusively in relation to the arts) will not last, as it constitutes an aesthetic fad in this day and age of postmodernity. This thesis has important implications for understanding beauty, ugliness, and other aesthetic categories, be the era in the past, present, or future, to the extent that the current theoretical debate on aesthetic experience is as much misleading as obsolete. The current debate also obscures something more tremendous in the long run, in relation to the emergence of what Dr. Baofu originally proposes as the great transformations of aesthetic experience in the coming future that humans have never known, both here on Earth and later in deep space, in accordance to the five theses of his “transformative theory of aesthetic experience.” To understand this, the book is organized into four major parts (i.e., in relation to nature, the mind, culture, and society). ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-11-01,Alexander Mitjashin,Liberalism and Skepticism,Hardback,9781847183491,34.99,"The book Liberalism and Skepticism is devoted to political philosophy. It argues that there are very solid grounds to infer that libertarianism, as political order is able to provide more efficient decision-making than any other conceivable order. Methods that have been applied to support this idea turn out to be appropriate for the theory of knowledge, which points out the link between knowledge acquiring itself and the political order. Among the issues discussed in the book are Hume’s and Cartesian skepticism, theory of mind as it is understood within the conception held in the book, Nozick’s and Hayek’s libertarianism, the concept of manipulability of the social choice theory, the cause of Nazis coming to power, and many other themes. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-11-01,"Barbara Bolt, Felicity Colman, Graham Jones, Ashley Woodward","Sensorium: Aesthetics, Art, Life",Hardback,9781847183347,39.99,"This book presents a timely reconfiguration of the relations between art, philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. Through connection with a range of contemporary social and philosophical issues and movements, this collection of essays highlights the imperative of sensorial aesthetics. The book focuses on the radical philosophical approach to aesthetics enabled by the works of Jean-François Lyotard and Gilles Deleuze. From these philosophers an older meaning of aesthetic has been recalled. Before it indicated primarily the theory of art and beauty, “aesthetic” referred to the sensibility, the capacity to receive sensations. In summoning this “sensorial” meaning of aesthetics in their respective works, Lyotard, Deleuze, and other recent thinkers turn the philosophical theory of aesthetics away from the dominance of cognitivist and reception theories, and towards a thinking of aesthetics through considerations of the movements of matter, affect, and sensation. This vital transformation of aesthetics in turn allows a reconfiguration of the relationship between the domains of art, aesthetics, and philosophy. If aesthetics focuses on sensation, rather than cognition, then artists, musicians, and philosophers alike appear not only as phenomenological and empirical thinkers, but as experimenters with the parameters of the sensible, able to extend our perceptual interface with the world. Rather than artists deferring to philosophers in regard to the meaning of their works, this new understanding of aesthetics suggests that philosophers ought to defer to artists, who are understood as inventers in the realm of sensibility. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-11-01,William Collins Donahue and Julian Preece,The Worlds of Elias Canetti: Centenary Essays,Hardback,9781847183521,39.99,"Though he died in the last decade of the twentieth century, the satirist, social thinker, memoirist, and dramatist Elias Canetti lives on into the present. Testifying to the author’s undeniable cultural “afterlife,” the essays gathered together here represent a wide swath of the latest Canetti scholarship. Contributors examine Canetti’s Jewish identity; the Marxist politics of his youth; his influence on writers as diverse as Bachmann, Jelinek, and Sebald; the undiscovered “poetry” of his literary testament (Nachlass); his status as a self-cancelling satirist; and his complex and sometimes ambivalent citation of Chinese and French cultural icons. In addition, this volume presents a treatment of Canetti as philosopher; as contributor to the great debate on the genesis of violence; as a chronicler of the WWII exile experience; as well as a personal reminiscence by one of the great Canetti scholars of our time, Gerald Stieg. The Worlds of Elias Canetti challenges conventional wisdom about this Nobel laureate and opens up new areas to scholarly investigation. “The Worlds of Elias Canetti convenes diverse disciplinary perspectives on one of the most enigmatic and ambidextrous authors of the twentieth century. An internationally renowned team of scholars places Canetti’s social thought and literary oeuvre within intriguing new contexts, highlighting as yet underexplored connections within areas such as philosophy, Jewish Studies, cultural anthropology, literary intertextuality, and beyond. Compellingly, this volume introduces us to a Canetti we have not yet known, and one who equally belongs to the twenty-first century. In its scope and originality, The Worlds of Elias Canetti sets a new standard—and not just for Canetti scholarship.” Jochen Vogt, Professor of German Literature, University of Essen ","""The Anthology constitutes a significant enrichment to the body of research on the Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti."" Helga W. Kraft, University of Illinois at Chicago ""The editors have created a collection that displays the shape and balance of the best kind of critical anthology...the essays are of an impressively high standard, and there is an internal coherence and logic to this volume that can sometimes be hard to find in published conference proceedings. The esays address virtually all parts of Canetti's diverse ouvre and represent an excellent snapshot of contemporary scholarship on the author. They succeed in contextualising Canetti's writings in original, often provocative, and persuasive ways, while at times entering into productive dialogue - be the engagement direct or oblique - with one another."" David Darby, University of Western Ontario, MLR, 104.4, 2009 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-12-01,Shea Coulson,Adorno’s Aesthetics of Critique,Hardback,9781847183774,29.99,"Adorno's Aesthetics of Critique examines Theodor Adorno's mode of critique from the perspective of his aesthetics. This has two purposes. The first purpose is to determine the effect of the primary importance Adorno places on aesthetics in his philosophy as a whole and to determine how this primacy influences the way in which he reads the philosophical tradition. The second purpose is to understand the role of aesthetics in critical thinking generally and to reinvigorate Adorno's understanding of the subjective and objective dimensions of critique. The ultimate aim is to promote new interpretations of Adorno and to reassert his relevance for constructing effective modes of critical thinking. The book proceeds through four main chapters that focus on four different dimensions of Adorno's thought: knowledge, history, culture, and art. The first chapter uses Adorno's aesthetic theory to re-read his interpretation of Kant's subject-object dynamic. This grounds the second chapter, on history, which proceeds through an analysis of Adorno's reading of Hegel. The third chapter uses the philosophical grounding of the first two to explore how knowledge and history interact within society as fundamental dimensions of ""culture"". The scope and meaning of culture and its relevance for critique form the primary focus of this chapter. The fourth chapter turns to art to highlight the relationship between the critical and artistic dimensions of aesthetics in order to facilitate a dialogue between them. This serves the purpose of asserting and outlining the relevance of aesthetics for critical thought in the humanities and social sciences, which forms the crux of the book. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-12-01,Jon Burmeister and Mark Sentesy,"On Language: Analytic, Continental, and Historical Contributions",Hardback,9781847183910,34.99,"Language was at the heart of philosophical inquiry for Plato and Aristotle, and in contemporary discussion it is no less central. In addition to the history of philosophy's extensive investigations of language, analytic and continental philosophy too have focused intensively on the matter. But since most inquiries into language remain enclosed in their own methodology, terminology, and tradition, the multiplicity of approaches is often accompanied by their mutual isolation. This book shows that these traditions can, however, speak meaningfully to each other on language: rather than preventing dialogue, their differences provide opportunities for fruitful inquiry. The essays in this volume each treat a central topic in the contemporary study of language. Part One addresses how expression determines thought according to Humboldt, the use of paraphrase in Quine's semantic ascent, and the non-ambiguity of the Frege-Russell senses of ‘is.’ Part Two includes treatments of the possibility and impossibility of promising in Nietzsche, and Derrida's re-working of Saussure's distinction between language and world. Topics in Part Three include the origin and end of language for Heidegger and Foucault, and the mutual sharpening of logic and ordinary speech in Anselm. This book fills a gap in current scholarship by bringing together nine essays that, through rejecting the debilitating yet often unquestioned divisions between disciplines, are able to illuminate the fundamental nature of language. ","""In each part of this thought-provoking volume on the nature of language, there are essays that demonstrate the immense intellectual potential of writing that refuses to see any decisive distinction between the present of philosophy and its history, or between the ways in which Kant’s work has been inherited in Anglo-American and Franco-German traditions."" —Stephen Mulhall, New College, Oxford University, author of Wittgenstein's Private Language ""With its robust range of complementary topics, each subjected to penetrating examination, this collection of essays makes a welcome contribution to the philosophy of language, past and present."" —Daniel Dahlstrom, Boston University, author of Heidegger’s Concept of Truth ""The contributions to this impressive volume ignore traditional divides between “analytic” and “continental,” historical and systematic philosophy. This enables the authors to put a number of key issues in the philosophy of language into a striking new light…. Fully accessible to the advanced undergraduate in philosophy, the book also contains many provocative ideas for the specialist."" —Martin Kusch, University of Cambridge, author of Language as Calculus vs. Language as Universal Medium ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-12-01,Silke Horstkotte and Karin Leonhard,Seeing Perception,Hardback,9781847183743,39.99,"What do we see when we see, how do we perceive vision itself, and how do we speak and write about seeing and perception? The articles collected in this volume attempt to observe the constitution of perception, be it of a visual field or visible objects, but also of images which emerge in the mind, e.g. that of the reader in the act of reading. The act of vision is profoundly impure, and ‘seeing’ very much entails other modes of sense-based perception such as listening, touching, feeling, tasting or smelling. Various modes of seeing can moreover be observed within literary texts or in music, dreams, memory or all kinds of bodily experiences like dance, pain, sexuality etc., so that there cannot be any such thing as a clearly defined realm called ‘visuality.’ Moreover, ‘seer’ and ‘seen’ are mutually permeable in any visual practice, reflecting on the reciprocal relationship between the visuality of objects and the very act of looking, which could be understood not only as a sensual experience but also as an interaction, an intellectual performance and interpretation. But if there exists this inseparable bond between object and spectator, how can we distance ourselves from the act of looking and ‘show seeing,’ how is it possible to talk and write about ‘seeing perception’? The impurity of the visual, and the contextuality of all acts of looking, constitutes a common thread running through the articles collected in this volume. The ways in which images are perceived in Western culture are inextricably linked with verbal and textual structures and ways of thinking. However, the contributions in this volume are less concerned with the practical, political implications of a visual culture which formed the backbone of visual studies research a few years ago, and more with an adequate understanding of the various concepts and operations at work in theories of visual perception, of seeing, the gaze, and of focalisation. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-12-01,J. Donald Ragsdale,Structures as Argument: The Visual Persuasiveness of Museums and Places of Worship,Hardback,9781847183866,39.99,"Structures as Argument assesses museums, places of worship, monuments, and cemetery stones as means of visual persuasion. It argues that structures are equally capable of influencing viewers as speeches or advertisements are and that to miss this essential feature of them is to fail in understanding their cultural roles. The book spotlights museums ranging from such cultural icons as the Louvre and the British Museum, to such museums of collective memory as the Anne Frank House, to museums of pure visual persuasion such as the Doge’s Palace in Venice. It features places of worship which range from Notre-Dame de Paris, to the Spanish missions of San Antonio, Texas, to the Protestant churches of America and includes a chapter on non-Western structures such as Chinese museums and Buddhist temples. Structures as Argument makes a significant contribution to the theory of persuasion, visual communication, and art history. It utilizes a theory of visual signs developed by Paul Messaris out of the semiotic theory of C. S. Peirce. In so doing, it demonstrates that artifacts of war, cathedral iconography, positioning of art objects for effect, and the art of gravestone sculpture all may be thought of in terms of means of social influence. ","""Structures as Argument: The Visual Persuasiveness of Museums and Places of Worship edited by J. Donald Ragsdale opens a novel way to view and interact with structures that most people have grown to take for granted. Museums and places of worships are reframed as much more than containers of people and artifacts. Rather, readers are asked to consider the designers of the containers and the arrangers of their interiors as very smart strategists with messages to put forward; and to consider ourselves as members of their audience. Thus those structures may be to their audience a cultural icon, or a polemic or a reminder of collective memory or a partisan advocate or finally an exercise in “pure visual persuasion.” Ragsdale and his co-authors furnish detailed and fascinating commentary on the likes of otherwise familiar structures (taken in order): the Louvre, the museum at Dachau, the Ann Frank House, the Tate Modern, and the Sistine Chapel and many others. With this skeleton in place the chapters in Structures as Argument flesh out the thesis contained in the title by extending and applying it to museums of natural history plus their iterations on their websites and to European gothic cathedrals, Spanish missions of the American southwest, the contemporary protestant church scene and to nonwestern manifestations of this same rhetorical impulse. Throughout their whole treatment, Ragsdale and his co-authors employ the elaborated likelihood model of Petty and Cacioppo (1985) to demonstrate how structures take the peripheral route into our awareness, depending on “music, light, color, scent, and other such mood-inducing forms . . . [that are] not to be thought about critically but rather to be felt or experienced directly . . . .” In short, the book prepares one to see the museum or place of worship with new eyes and to be wary of their builders’ persuasive designs.” —Richard L. Conville, Professor, Department of Speech Communication, The University of Southern Mississippi ""Ragsdale and his colleagues provide the first systematic approach to the varied ways our museums, cathedrals, churches, shrines, and other monuments create persuasive arguments. What distinguishes this approach is the careful integration of central communication concepts drawn from persuasion theory. Because of the cultural and temporal diversity of these varied examples, they also draw upon concepts from intercultural communication theory to connect the persuasive appeals to the widely varied audiences. The exciting examples range from prominent museums and great cathedrals to Asian shrines and cowboy churches in rural America. Such a widespread array provides convincing evidence of the strength of the central arguments in the book. This book will appeal to a very wide audience ranging from tourists to experts who are interested in visual communication and persuasion, to art historians and museum curators. The writing style permits ready access by the layperson and will challenge them to recognize the serious historical and cultural implications of what they might casually observe. This book is an early entry in a comparatively new field of study and will expand the reader’s view, no matter how sophisticated, to embrace unexpected purposes associated with these visual structures. Nearly any reader can identify with one or more parts of this wonderful tour of these somewhat neglected dimensions of culture."" Dr. Brooks Hill, Professor/Chair, Department of Speech and Drama, Trinity University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2007-12-01,"Matthew Sharpe, Murray Noonan, and Jason Freddi","Trauma, History, Philosophy (With Feature Essays by Agnes Heller and György Márkus)",Hardback,9781847183781,34.99,"In the age of the war on terror and what one critic has called 'disaster capitalism', the topic of trauma has assumed renewed cultural relevance. Trauma, Historicity, Philosophy is a collection of essays by Australian philosophers, psychoanalysts, and cultural theorists on the genealogy, semantics, and relevance of the concept of 'trauma' in the contemporary world. The collection features two essays by Agnes Heller and Gyorgy Markus addressing trauma, and what psychoanalysis' elevation of 'trauma' to cultural centrality means (and has meant) for modern philosophy and social theory. Other essays address '911', cyber-terrorism, the shoah, political tyranny, the 'end of history', and engage with the thought of Kierkegaard, Schmitt, Hobbes, Derrida, Agamben, Badiou, Zizek, Lacan and Freud. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-01-01,George Vlahakis,Notions of Physics in Natural Philosophy,Hardback,9781847184306,24.99,"The European Physical Society Conference “Notions of Physics in Natural Philosophy” was held in 23-25 September 2007 in Athens. It was organized by the Program of History and Philosophy of Science of the Institute for Neohellenic Research / National Hellenic Research Foundation and the Laboratory of Science Education, Epistemology and Educational Technology of the University of Athens. The Conference was supported by the History of Physics Committee of the European Physical Society and the History of Physics Group of Institute of Physics (England). The latter was represented by Mr. Malcolm Cooper, editor of the Newsletter of the Group who kindly gave as a brief description of the activities of the Group. The main themes of the Conference were:  The emergence of notions of physics in ancient philosophy  The concept of physical laws in Philosophy of Nature during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance  The mathematization of Natural Philosophy and the emergence of classical sciences. We hope that the present volume of the Proceedings will be a useful tool for those interested on the subject. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-01-01,David Swift,"The Epicurean Theory of Mind, Meaning and Knowledge",Hardback,9781847184047,29.99,"Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus provided some of our most cherished assumptions about physics and ethics. He postulated an infinite universe made exclusively of atoms and void. He also treated slaves and women as equals and defined our standards of pleasure and luxury. Now David Swift turns to Epicurus for help with another significant mystery: the scientific explanation of mind. Using Epicurean ideas that our minds are in our chests and, perhaps even more radically, that meaning is understood in our sense organs he re-examines and reinterprets the works of philosophers like Descartes, Locke, Kant and Mill and scientists such as Pavlov, Freud, Skinner and Rogers. Seen in the light of the Epicurean concept, Renaissance philosophy and classic scientific psychology validate a surprisingly consistent and coherent scientific explanation of behaviour. The mechanisms of meaning, knowledge, learning and remembering are explained in terms of biological reflexes. The secrets of love, hate and loyalty are revealed as non-verbal knowledge only accessible as feelings. And success, failure, criminal and other behaviours are shown to be the results of learned experience not genetic predisposition. At last we have the possibility of a plausible biologically-based general psychological theory. "," ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-01-01,Michael Berman,The Everyday Fantasic: Essays on Science Fiction and Human Being,Hardback,9781847184283,29.99,"The Everyday Fantastic is an anthology born in love. The love is for science fiction, in all its myriad forms: novels, television, movies, music, art, etc. Many writers from a plurality of disciplines, professions and walks of life share this disposition. This attitude cuts across national boundaries and has even outlasted the vagaries of popular culture fads. This collection of essays draws upon these feelings in terms of the different ways science fiction is engaged in different disciplines, viewing the genre beyond mere entertainment. The papers collected here engage the fundamental questions explored in science fiction. Many of the essays were originally presented at an interdisciplinary conference in October 2005 at Brock University, highlighted by Robert J. Sawyer’s engaging keynote address. Additional chapters were in part inspired by these presentations. These essays represent a wide array of voices from the humanities, social sciences and sciences, and address a comparable range of topics and the media that use the science fiction genre. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-01-01,Theodore Walker and Mihály Tóth,"Whiteheadian Ethics: Abstracts and Papers from the Ethics Section of the Philosophy Group at the 6th International Whitehead Conference at the University of Salzburg, July 2006",Hardback,9781847184405,29.99,"For deliberations on the ethical and meta-ethical implications of Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy, here are abstracts and papers from the Ethics Section of the 6th International Whitehead Conference held at the University of Salzburg in Salzburg, Austria in July 2006. In accordance with the conference schedule, there are three subsections. The subsection on “Metaphysics of Morals and Moral Theory” includes contributions from Franklin I. Gamwell (""Does Morality Presuppose God?""), John W. Lango (abstract only), Duane Voskuil (“Ethics' Dipolar Necessities and Theistic Implications""), and Theodore Walker Jr. (“Neoclassical Cosmology and Matthew 22:36-40""). The subsection on “Evaluating Moral Practices” includes contributions from Frederick Ferré (abstract only), Seung Gap Lee (""Hope for the Earth: A Process Eschatological Eco-ethics for South Korea""), Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore (""Compassion, Creativity, and Form: The Ethics of Institutions""), and George W. Shields (""Ruse, Altruism, and Process Philosophy""). The subsection on “Ethics and Aesthetic Values” includes contributions from Stephen T. Franklin (abstract only), Brian G. Henning (""Is There an Ethics of Creativity?""), Mihály Tóth (""Art of Life and the Ethics of Life Forming""), and Guorong Yang (""Problems and Perspectives in the Emerging of Global Society""). ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-04-01,"Matthew Caleb Flamm, John Lachs, and Krzysztof Piotr Skowroñski",American and European Values: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives,Hardback,9781847185006,34.99,"American and European Values: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives is a collection of essays by contemporary scholars considering key aspects of intersection and encounter between American and European values in the contemporary world. The truly international makeup of twenty-one contributors enlivens the book's theme in surprising, and frequently edifying ways. The authors consider, in places with revealing frankness, the cultural sensibilities unique to America and Europe, key historical philosophic figures, from John Dewey, Josiah Royce, and William James to Jean-Paul Sartre, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Mikhail Bakhtin. They also take up various philosophic trends and movements unique to the American and European traditions, including pragmatism, existentialism, phenomenology, and logical-linguistic analysis. Readers interested in deepening their understanding of the increasingly vital philosophical problems that continue to emerge with growing trends of globalization are invited into this rich conversation. ","""This well crafted volume provides unflinching assessments of the philosophical values that are beginning to unite – and that continue to divide – the cultures of America and Europe. Its contributors offer arguments that are once timely, provocative, and accessible. "" —Larry A. Hickman, Ph.D, Director at The Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale IL ""American and European Values is a far richer book than a misreading of its title might suggest: it is truly a ""both (American)-and (European),"" not an ""either-or."" The perspectives of its contributors range over time and place, from the anarchic California of Gold Rush days to modern Poland, Russia, and Turkey. Eclectic in the best sense of that word, it combines philosophy, literature, history, and even religion without ever straying far from its central theme. And, somewhat incidentally, it also demonstrates just how multifaceted and complex is the idea of ""pragmatism."" "" —William McBride, Ph.D. is Arthur G. Hansen Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University, Indiana. ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-04-01,Sherry Ackerman,Behind the Looking Glass,Hardback,9781847184863,29.99,"Behind the Looking Glass offers a fresh perspective in the ongoing, contemporary deconstruction of the Carroll Myth. Through rigorous examination of numerous myths that have been hitherto unquestioned, Ackerman skillfully positions Lewis Carroll in the theological and philosophical contexts of his time. She uncovers a Carroll whose radical religio-philosophical counter-response to patriarchal materialism moved his intellectual journey, intentionally or otherwise, deep into the waters of mysticism. The image of Carroll as a dreary Victorian conservative gives way to that of a man with wide intellectual parameters, an inquiring mind and bold, far-sighted vision. Behind the Looking Glass demonstrates how nineteenth century currents of spiritualism, theosophy and occult philosophy co-mingled with Carroll’s interest in revived Platonism and Neoplatonism, showcasing the Alice and Sylvie and Bruno books as unique points of conjunction between Carroll’s intellect and spirituality. The scholarship in this work, while rigorous, is softly mixed with the kind of academic frivolity that Carroll himself might have enjoyed. Ackerman exposes a Carroll who, having lost belief in the theological and mythological master plots of earlier eras, turned toward the imaginative fiction of wonderlands rife with philosophical content in response to his instinctive hunger for cosmic coherence and existential order. "," ""Forget psychoanalysis. Western esotericism is where the key to Lewis Carroll's Alice books has been all along and Sherry Ackerman has found it, polished it up, and reopened the real 'little door in the wall.'"" Joscelyn Godwin, Ph.D., Professor of Music, Colgate University; author of The Theosophical Enlightenment and The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance. “Some of the magical brilliance of Lewis Carroll—starting with his own self-invention—lay in his command of the esoteric craft of hiding secrets in plain sight. To bring them to light calls for a writer who mirrors Charles Dodgson's formidable combination of scholarly erudition and spiritual passion. Meet Sherry Ackerman. She is as well-informed about the mathematics and physics of the late 19th century as she is in its art, literature, photography, and competing university agendas of Enlightenment and Romanticism.” —Peter Manchester, Associate Professor of Philosophy, SUNY Stony Brook, Past President North American International Society for Neoplatonic Studies; author of Syntax of Time: The Phenomenology of Time in Greek Physics and Speculative Logic from Iamblichus to Anaximander “Forget psychoanalysis. Western esotericism is where the key to Lewis Carroll's Alice books has been all along and Sherry Ackerman has found it, polished it up, and reopened the real 'little door in the wall.'” —Joscelyn Godwin, Professor of Music, Colgate University; author of The Theosophical Enlightenment and The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance “In Carroll’s mystical symbolism, Sherry Ackerman finds the efforts of the human soul to acquire knowledge of its true self (gnosis). This philosophic self-knowledge, she argues, is essentially different from other kinds of scientific knowledge that are based on empirical data, rational calculations or inductive generalizations.” —Christos C. Evangeliou, Professor of Hellenic Philosophy, Towson University; Honorary President International Association for Greek Philosophy; author of Hellenic Philosophy: Origin and Character ""Sherry Ackerman takes theosophy, philosophy, and Lewis Carroll each on their own terms and marvelously succeeds in separating fact from fiction. The result is an intriguing and insightful blend of various schools of thought on Carroll--and his and our time--resulting in a rich tapestry that is both a great education and a pleasure to read."" Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, author of A Bath, Bedside, and Armchair Companion to Lewis Carroll and Eels. ""Dr. Ackerman ...is exposing her students to a body of knowledge and a tradition of outsider thought that was hardly recognized as such in the anglosphere before the 1960s. She is introducing them to the tradition of Western Esotericism. ...the study will reward scholars of children’s literature and perhaps those cultural historians who may wish to trace the possible influence on Carroll and other imaginative writers of the period of what James Webb and Joscelyn Godwin after him have characterized as “rejected knowledge,” that is, the whole tradition of Western Esotericism. Professor John Robert Colombo, author of many books, Fellow of the University of Toronto. ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-04-01,Vrasidas Karalis,Heidegger and the Aesthetics of Living,Hardback,9781847185068,34.99,"The publication brings together contributions by many scholars, academics and researchers on the work of the German philosopher from a variety of perspectives and approaches. Prominent thinkers from various disciplines engage in a fascinating dialogue with the work of Martin Heidegger in an attempt to explain and critically evaluate his contraversial legacy. The volume is an attempt to go beyond the polarised perceptions about the philosophy of Heidegger and present a neo-humanist reading of what can be still considered “livable” in it. Contributions also examine the consequences of Heidegger’s thinking for a wide range of modes of cultural production and aspects of philosophical enterprise. Finally the volume attempts the first post-political interpretation of his work by focusing on the texts themselves for the conceptual values they formulate and the modes of thinking they established. Contributors are: Gianni Vattimo, Jeff Malpas, Anthony Stephens , Peter Murphy, Elizabeth Grierson, Paolo Bartoloni, John Dalton, Colin Hearfield, Jane Mummery, Robert Sinnerbrink, Ashley Woodward, Peter Williams, George Vassilacopoulos and Vrasidas Karalis. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-04-01,Fabio A. Durão and Dominic Williams,Modernist Group Dynamics: The Politics and Poetics of Friendship,Hardback,9781847185082,39.99,"For decades, the study of literary and philosophical modernism concerned solitary figures like the flâneur, the exile, and the lonely genius, but recently the group formations that fostered modernist movements have emerged into view. The essays in Modernist Group Dynamics: The Poetics and Politics of Friendship pursue this new direction in modernist scholarship, exploring the ways artists and intellectuals worked in concert and in conflict. Placing group formations, with all their promises and problems, at the centre of our study allows the contributors—scholars from around the world—to reconsider some of the best-known figures of European modernism, to analyze collaborations across national boundaries, and to recover modernist groups in unexpected contexts like the so-called Third World. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-04-01,Alan Schwerin under the auspices of the Bertrand Russell Society,Russell Revisited: Critical Reflections on the Thought of Bertrand Russell,Hardback,9781847184948,29.99,"Bertrand Russell has played a central role in the development of modern western philosophy, especially analytic philosophy. An appreciation of the main themes and arguments of the thinkers who contributed to this modern movement in philosophy must include references to and analyses of Russell’s important contributions. It would seem that many do recognize the significance of his thought and have shown this in a somewhat dramatic manner. Russell’s Google number, for instance, is about 2.35 million. If the number of entries listed in this search engine is any indication of the level of interest online in Russell, we can surely conclude that the thought and life of this aristocratic English philosopher, logician and humanist still captures the imagination of tens of thousands, if not millions around the globe – even some thirty-seven years after his death. How do we account for this abiding interest in Russell? In a word it is accessibility. Whether it is the complex epistemological issue of the veracity of sense-data, the conundrums associated with the possibility of non-existent objects, the intricacies of the debates on the nature of language or the interminable search of a clear understanding of happiness, Russell inevitably has something profound and clear to say on the matter. Readers of Russell Revisited: Critical Reflections on the Thought of Bertrand Russell will be reminded of this fact time and time again as they explore the analyses here. Representing some of the best of the most recent scholarship on Russell, the articles gathered in this collection serve as a testament to the value of Russell’s diverse contributions to a wide range of challenging philosophical issues. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-04-01,A. Javier Treviño,Talcott Parsons on Law and the Legal System,Hardback,9781847184856,44.99,"One of the great ironies in contemporary sociology of law is that despite Talcott Parsons’s enormously influential role as “the midwife of modern sociology,” coupled with his three decades of focused and sustained analysis of the legal system’s location in a total and complex society, it is nothing short of appalling that his particular social systems approach to law has been largely neglected. Indeed, although Parsons made only cursory mention of law in some of his best-known works, he extensively discussed the role of the legal system in no less than five important papers and two somewhat lengthy book reviews. What is more, in the two slim paperbacks where Parsons applies his cybernetic systems theory in explaining the progression from premodern to modern societies, he considers law to be an essential element in the analysis of just about every society under consideration: ancient Egypt and the Mesopotamian empires; China, India, and the Islamic empires; the Roman empire; Israel and Greece; medieval Western Christendom; the United States. This volume, the first of its kind, is the most complete articulation of Parsons’s treatment of the U.S. legal system’s nature and function during the late-twentieth century. In addition to a lengthy Introduction by the editor, the book consists of 26 readings, taken from the full range of Parsons’s books and papers, which, in toto, render a detailed analytical roadmap that can today guide much of our sociological thinking concerning such contemporary social issues related to law as citizenship, trust, and governmentality. More than this, Parsons’s writings on the courts and the legal profession—both of which he believed to constitute the core of an integrative U.S. citizenry—can inform policy-makers’ decisions concerning such controversial issues as immigration, civil rights, and legal ethics. ","“In his Theory of Communicative Action, Jürgen Habermas asserted that ‘no theory of society can be taken seriously today if it does not at least situate itself with respect to Parsons.’ The historical error of simply ignoring Parsons’s work is in clear need of correction. We must therefore be grateful to A. Javier Treviño for his contribution to this corrective by providing us with a collection of Parsons’s key works and thoughts on the sociology of law. In doing so he opens up the potential of a sophisticated sociology for understanding the legal system of an increasingly complex society.” —Helmut Staubmann, University of Innsbruck “Treviño’s Talcott Parsons on Law and the Legal System gives an ideal, thought-provoking, and fascinating focus in exploring trans-sectional social phenomena. In examining law’s relationship to the societal community, polity, economy and culture, this is not only an epoch-making book on Parsons’s sociology of law, it also makes a breakthrough contribution to a comprehensive understanding of contemporary society.” —Kiyomitsu Yui, Kobe University “A. Javier Treviño has done a great service to the discipline in editing together Parsons’s most interesting analyses of the law and providing the reader with a systematic, yet highly readable, introduction to his views on the subject. Both sociologists and legal scholars will discover much to think about in this book.” —Giuseppe Sciortino, University of Trento ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-05-01,Chandana Chakrabarti and Gordon Haist,Revisiting Mysticism,Hardback,9781847185587,34.99,"The twelve essays in this collection promote scholarship on the rich and diverse subject of mysticism by examining the nature of its thought both from Eastern and Western and from philosophical and religious perspectives. These include studies of specific mystics, including Teresa de Avila, Lady Nijo, Hiroshi Motoyama, and Mirabai, and thinkers about mysticism, including Kant, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein. The book opens with two descriptive studies of similarities in the life of Teresa de Avila and mystics of very different times and cultures. The issue of mysticism and ethics is addressed in three essays, and central concepts involving pure conscious events and primordial oneness in Nietzsche are addressed in two separate essays. Wittgenstein's comments on mysticism are examined in two essays, one that places them in the perspective of his overall development and the other that studies them in comparison with recent continental thought. The book concludes with two essays that look broadly at the supersensible, one from an examination of Kantian aesthetics and the other from quantum mechanical interpretations of reality. Taken together, these essays attest to the power of mysticism to provoke reasoned thought about ultimate matters. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-06-01,Benoit Hardy-Vallée and Nicolas Payette,"Beyond the Brain: Embodied, Situated and Distributed Cognition",Hardback,9781847185983,34.99,"Cognitive science faces a major methodological and conceptual change since the 90's. Whereas the brain was traditionally conceived as being the only seat of intelligence, many researches emphasize the entrenchment of the brain in body, context and culture. In 2006, a conference was held at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and allowed researchers from various fields to interact and discuss such issues. Cognitio 2006 was an occasion for philosophers, cognitive scientists and biologists to present the latest developments in their discipline, and this book aims at providing a general overview of current research on embodied, situated and distributed cognition. "," ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-06-01,Craig Greenman,Expression and Survival: An Aesthetic Approach to the Problem of Suicide,Hardback,9781847185969,24.99,"Philosophers know suicide primarily as an ethical problem. But in Expression and Survival, Craig Greenman argues that, when it comes to suicide, the standard ethical approach may do more harm than good. He develops instead an aesthetic approach, arguing that art–making it or experiencing it–can help a suicidal person survive. Drawing on the work of philosophers and artists, as well as his own experiences, Greenman guides the reader through the landscape to which many suicidal people feel condemned. He traces the problem back to antagonism–we harm others and they harm us–and argues that art, broadly construed, can help us survive it. The result will be of interest to ethicists, aestheticians, social and political philosophers, therapists, and anyone who has ever struggled with suicide. Also included in this volume are two essays, “Writing and Ambivalence” and “What Is Philosophy?” ","“This book is difficult, but also necessary: a sober reflection on how and why we cope with contingency, and how some of us cannot cope. It is no exaggeration to say that Greenman engages in a life or death struggle on every page. This is a moving work, and it adds to the possibilities of living on.” Bill Martin, DePaul University, Author of Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork “Rejecting a conventional emphasis on the ethics of suicide, Greenman's Expression and Survival insists on an aesthetic approach. This deeply engaging book has a literary richness that cloaks a direct, clear, indeed piercing voice–always original, always interesting, and always challenging.” Margaret Pabst Battin, University of Utah, Author of Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-06-01,Eleonora Papaleontiou-Louca,Metacognition and Theory of Mind,Hardback,9781847185785,24.99," This little book aims to clarify and give a synoptic description of both the notions of ‘Metacognition’ and ‘Theory of Mind’, as well as a short comparison of these two ‘hot’ scientific topics. After giving the theoretical framework of the concept of ‘Metacognition’, it describes a number of practical suggestions of how educators of all levels can enhance their students’ metacognitive abilities in practice. Then it analyzes all the basic aspects of the concept of ‘Theory of Mind’ and its relation to Language. Finally, it tries to combine the two theoretical concepts, i.e. ‘Metacognition’ and ‘Theory of Mind’, by making some helpful clarifications and identifying their major similarities, differences and convergences. In this way, the author hopes strongly to contribute to the resume of the Literature Review in a concise and handy volume, and wishes to help all the interesting parts, scholars and teachers, to do their own insights and improvements (theoretical and practical) in these crucial areas. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-06-01,Willem Lemmens and Walter Van Herck,Religious Emotions: Some Philosophical Explorations,Hardback,9781847185716,34.99,"In recent decades contemporary Anglo-American philosophy has seen a boom in publications on the subject of ‘the emotions’. Most publications focus on the cognitive value of emotions and on their moral significance. The role which emotions play in religion, however, has sofar received little attention. In this volume a number of scholars present their research on ‘religious emotions’. Is there a category of ‘religious emotions’? What is so distinctive about them? Was there really a Christian-inspired repression of the emotions? Or did Christianity also made use of the human emotional potential? How is the relation between religion and emotions conditioned by the process of secularisation? How and why did a shift from the concept of ‘passion’ to that of ‘emotion’ occur from the eighteenth century on? This collection includes systematical treatments as well as historical approaches of these issues. The last part gives some paradigmatical cases of religious emotions, like emptiness and oceanic feeling. In the study of what constitutes a human being neither religion nor emotion can be neglected. The reader is invited to reflect on their interaction. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-07-01,Harry Eiss,Insanity and Genius: Masks of Madness and the Mapping of Meaning and Value,Hardback,9781847186119,44.99," Pablo Picasso said “We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.” John Keats expressed the same in the climactic couplet of his poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn, when he wrote, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all / Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.” On September 8, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh, referring to his painting The Night Cafe, wrote in a letter to his brother Theo: “I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green.” This is what I have struggled with, this higher truth, and its messengers: drama, dance, sculpture, painting--all of the arts, and such other disciplines as philosophy, theology, psychology and neurology. It is what led me, innocent of all the implications and reasons for it, to first submerse myself in literature, music and drawing in my desperate search for meaning as a child following my father’s death. In his book about the discovery of the structure of DNA, James Watson wrote, “So we had lunch, telling ourselves that a structure this beautiful just had to exist.” Indeed, the question most often asked by scientists about a scientific theory is “Is it beautiful?” Yes, truth equals beauty. Scientists know, mathematicians know. But the beauties, the truths of math and science were not the truths I needed as a child, and I intuitively knew it, intuitively knew that the truths I needed come from a different way of knowing, a way of knowing not of the world of logic and reason and explanation (though they help lead us to it), but rather a way of knowing that is of the world of expression, a world that takes us to what is just beyond the grasp of logic. That is what this book is all about. It is an exploration of the greatest minds of especially the past two centuries and how they have struggled to find the deepest truths about the human condition. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-07-01,Roberto Buonamano,Rights and Subjectivity: A Pre-History of Human Rights,Hardback,9781847186058,34.99," Over the course of the last century human rights have served as the pre-eminent currency of neo-liberal discourses and correspondingly informed the construction of the individual as a legal and political subject. This has been the case notwithstanding that the fundamental paradox of individual rights—as universal and inalienable attributes of human being that depend integrally upon the political and legal frameworks of the nation state for their recognition—perpetually reveals the contingency and frailty of modern human rights, whether in terms of their conceptualisation, application or enforcement. The pervasiveness of this form of subjectivity, and its influence upon both national constitutions and the emergence of international legal institutions, suggests the need to investigate not merely the more conventional histories of human rights—as a product of post-Enlightenment liberal theory and the international legal order of sovereign states—but also the pre-historical formation of the individual as an inherent bearer of rights. In order to chart a genealogical history of the relationship between rights and subjectivity, this study brings together an analysis of key doctrines and concepts, such as sovereignty, jurisdiction, democracy, natural rights and freedom, and an examination of certain historical narratives—the theological-political model of sovereignty during the Middle Ages; the development of feudal rights as dominial and individual liberties; the role of the text and the concepts of public law and property in Medieval Roman and Canonical jurisprudence; and, the theological and humanistic philosophical discourses on natural law and personal liberty. "," ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-08-01,"F. Ochieng’-Odhiambo, Roxanne Burton, and Ed Brandon",Conversations in Philosophy: Crossing the Boundaries,Hardback,9781847186300,39.99,"Conversations in Philosophy: Crossing the Boundaries consists of essays that revolve around the question of the nature and meaning of philosophy, even as it demonstrates philosophy’s significance and relevance to some fundamental human problems and issues. The essays present diverse views of what philosophy might be and might aspire to be, with contributors being influenced by a wide range of philosophical approaches and traditions. The conversations also cut across disciplinary boundaries to interrogate and utilize ideas taken from ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, literary studies, cultural studies, and the sociology of science. Traversing regional boundaries, the essays show philosophical analysis at work in exploring some issues pertinent to African, Caribbean, European and American experiences, even while not ignoring Asian traditions. The collection presents interesting and intriguing views on how philosophical inquiry can illuminate various pressing problems: development, conflict, the discriminating preservation of worthwhile traditions, and the prevalence of apathy. It also reflects the vitality and multifaceted nature of philosophical discourse in grappling with live issues. Conversations in Philosophy is a comprehensive, balanced, and unique anthology of readings capturing the diversity of philosophical investigation. "," “This fine collection admirably fulfills the promise of its title, conveying a sense of ongoing, and genuine, conversations across philosophy’s new and old disciplinary traditions. Engaging with the history and present of African philosophy in its relation to and its departures from diverse aspects of the Western tradition, showing how Caribbean philosophy defines itself with and against hitherto hegemonic divisions of philosophical practice, drawing on the resources of Anglo-American and “continental” philosophy, the essays are thoughtful, provocative, and challenging. Questions about Negritude and questions posed by third-world feminists, issues of race, gender, and colonialism, conversations between philosophy and literature, metaphysical contestations emerging from the Bantu view of time, ontologies enacted in Caribbean music, all of these, and more, animate this compelling text which injects new life into often-tired debates.” Lorraine Code, Distinguished Research Professor Department of Philosophy York University, 4700 Keele Street Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, CANADA ""Philosophy is indeed flourishing in the Caribbean! This gem of critical reflections offers nourishment for the mind with open eyes to the situatedness of world events. The international community of philosophers and philosophically oriented theorists from a variety of disciplines here offers thought in the region in which the global dimensions of the modern world were formed and from which its reflection now proverbially demand looking forward through what has been. The Cave Hill Philosophy conversations are one of the beacons of creative reflection in the Caribbean, and this anthology stands as a hallmark of this important stage of the continued movement of Caribbean ideas."" Lewis R. Gordon, Laura H. Carnell Professor at Temple University and President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association (2003-2008. He is author of AN INTRODUCTION TO AFRICANA PHILOSOPHY (2008) ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-08-01,"Neil Robertson, Gordon McOuat and Tom Vinci",Descartes and the Modern,Hardback,9781847181527,39.99,"Descartes is not simply our iconic modern philosopher, mathematician or scientist. He stands as the cultural symbol for modernity itself. As such, Descartes is widely read in and out of universities as the definitive moment in the birth of what we take to be the Modern. Yet, recent scholarship has presented numerous challenges to the Cartesian image. Some question the legitimacy of calling Descartes a founder of modernity. Others have questioned the very legitimacy of Modernity itself, using Descartes as a way into that critique This collection of original papers by leading philosophers and historians of early modern thought opens up these questions, exploring them in new and markedly interdisciplinary ways, offering fresh insights into the important relationship between Descartes and the Modern, and the very meaning and status of Modernity itself. This collection assembles together for the first time leading representatives from what might be called the “naturalist” or Anglo-American school with those of the continental “phenomenological” school in a dialogue concerning Descartes’ place. The papers explore crucial questions and recent disputes regarding Descartes’ relationship to his predecessors, to his contemporaries and to modern thought, to the philosophy of mind, to questions of metaphysics and natural philosophy. Descartes and the Modern helps bridge solitudes drawn between these traditional approaches to Descartes. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-09-01,Ezio Di Nucci and Conor McHugh,"Content, Consciousness, and Perception: Essays in Contemporary Philosophy of Mind",Paperback,9781847187758,16.99,"What sort of thing is the mind? And how can such a thing at the same time - belong to the natural world, - represent the world, - give rise to our subjective experience, - and ground human knowledge? Content, Consciousness and Perception is an edited collection, comprising eleven new contributions to the philosophy of mind, written by some of the most promising young philosophers in the UK and Ireland. The book is arranged into three parts. Part I, “Concepts and Mental Content”, which begins with an attack by Hans-Johann Glock on the representational theory of mind, addresses the nature of mental representation. Part II, “Consciousness and the Metaphysics of Mind”, concerns the prospects for a naturalistic metaphysics of the conscious mind. Finally, Part III, entitled “Perception”, pursues the project of giving a satisfactory philosophical account of perceptual experience. The book begins with an introductory essay by the editors, which provides an overview of the state of contemporary philosophy of mind, locating the articles to follow within that context. The individual chapters of Content, Consciousness and Perception are professional contributions to their respective areas, of interest to any philosopher of mind. The volume as a whole is ideal for non-specialists and students interested in getting to grips with the state of the art in contemporary philosophy of mind. ","'If you want to know what the next but one generation of philosophers of mind are thinking about now, *Content, Consciousness and Perception* is a terrific place to look. This wide-ranging international collection is relevant to psychologists and cognitive scientists as well as philosophers.' Tim Williamson Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-09-01,Timothy Madigan,Promethean Love: Paul Kurtz and the Humanistic Perspective on Love,Paperback,9781847187581,16.99,"The myth of Prometheus has inspired countless generations of humanists throughout the ages. Prometheus -- who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans to help them survive -- remains a symbol for those who reject theistic orthodoxies and who fearlessly challenge accepted beliefs. Artists such as Byron, Goethe, Beethoven and Wagner have been influenced by this story. Most importantly, Prometheus is a symbol for selfless love. In this collection of essays, the Promethean myth and its relationship to the philosophy of love is explored from its origins in Ancient Greece, to its similarities and contrasts with the figure of Christ. Special emphasis is given to the work and writings of Paul Kurtz, the foremost contemporary defender of humanism as a worldview, who has made the figure of Prometheus a special part of his own philosophy. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-09-01,Pablo Muchnik,Rethinking Kant: Volume I,Hardback,9781847188212,39.99,"This collection of essays bears witness to the richness and vitality of Kantian studies in North America. It contains the bulk of the papers presented at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Eastern Study Group of the North American Kant Society (ENAKS), which took place at the University of Southern Maine in May 2007. It offers a sample of a whole generation of Kantian thought, ranging from recent Ph.Ds, to up and coming young scholars, to some well-established and influential players in the field. Gathering voices from philosophers at all levels of their professional development, the goal of the collection is to offer a glimpse at the current state of Kantian scholarship in the US. The essays collected here cover some of the most important and controversial themes in Kant’s philosophy: questions of freedom, the relation between anthropology and morality, the notion of the highest good and Kant’s teleology, radical evil and revolution. The last section places Kant in the context of German Idealism and contemporary discussions in analytic philosophy and liberal political theory. Some critical, other exegetical or apologetic, all these essays show a sustained effort to Rethinking Kant and indicate his importance for current philosophical debates. "," ""We North American Kant scholars like to flatter ourselves that in the last generation the center of gravity in Kant studies has moved across the north Atlantic and settled in the New World. Whether or not this is a self-flattering illusion, it is one likely to be encouraged by reading the high quality Kant scholarship and lively controversies about Kant's philosophy that are present in this volume."" -- Allen Wood - Stanford University “Pablo Muchnik’s collection is unique in bringing together new interpretations of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant from the best young scholars with the work of some of the most renowned mature scholars in this field. The volume covers many aspects of Kant’s philosophy, including metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, and anthropology as well as essays placing Kant’s philosophy in historical context. In many cases the contributions of young scholars contest the received wisdom of the field. This collection is shaped by new and fresh interpretations that intentionally take on received wisdom in order to demonstrate what it is that is missing or lost in established positions. Even if, at the end of the day, some of our established positions seem to have the stronger set of reasons on their side, it is important that young scholars continue to probe their limitations so that we gain a clearer sense of what we gain and what we lose when we undertake the art of interpretation.” Sharon Anderson-Gold, Professor, Department Head, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, New York ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-09-01,Rossella Fabbrichesi and Susanna Marietti,Semiotics and Philosophy in Charles Sanders Peirce,Paperback,9781847187888,16.99,"The subject of this book is the thought of the American pragmatist and founder of semiotics, Charles Sanders Peirce. The book collects the papers presented to the International Conference Semiotics and Philosophy in C.S. Peirce (Milan, April 2005), together with some additional new contributions by well-known Peirce scholars, bearing witness to the vigour of Peircean scholarship in Italy and also hosting some of the most significant international voices on this topic. The book is introduced by the two editors and is divided into three sections, corresponding to the three main areas of the most interesting contemporary reflection on Peirce. Namely, Semiotics and the Logic of Inquiry (part I); Abduction and Philosophy of Mathematics (part II); Peirce and the Western Tradition. (part III). The analysis is carried out from a semiotic perspective, in which semiotics should not be understood as a specific doctrine but rather as the philosophical core of Peirce’s system. As we read in the introduction: “it is semiotics and philosophy or, rather, semiotics as philosophy and philosophy as semiotics, which emerge from a reading of these papers”. ","The authors are recognized scholars of Peirce, and their topics are varied so that the volume is well balanced in its variety. The inclusion of Colapietro and Houser alone is evidence of the level of importance of the publication. It is a welcome addition to literature about Peirce. I am also especially impressed with Sini's discussion of semiotics and continuity, a topic on which I once focused. The idea of tying in Peirce’s semeiotic with other aspects of his philosophy is an effort that has increasingly intrigued me for the past eight years or so. Your book should be of interest to advanced students and professors of philosophy and semiotics in particular. Carl R. Hausman The book is both a wide-range survey on Peirce’s thinking in its semiotical, epistemological and logical aspects, and an assessment of his complex and multiple interests, which cover nearly all disciplines in the Western tradition. Few collections of essays on Peirce have appeared in recent times and the community of Peirce’s scholars was in great need of an overview on the most debated questions and on the new directions taken by these studies. I am thoroughly convinced that this collection shows very clearly the importance of studying Peirce today. From semiotics to psychology, from fallibilism to linguistic analysis, from the philosophy of mathematics to the classical, the medieval and the Kantian heritage on semiotics, it offers a new and fresh look on Peirce, pointing in myriad and startling directions. Corrado Mangione, Professor of Logic, University of Milan ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-09-01,Ruben L.F. Habito and Keishin Inaba,The Practice of Altruism: Caring and Religion in Global Perspective,Paperback,9781847187765,16.99," The study of altruism and altruistic behavior has caught the attention of social scientists especially in recent years. What motivates individuals to cultivate attitudes and actions that promote the wellbeing of others at the expense of, or at the risk of negative consequences for their own? In our contemporary global society marked by conflict and violence among different sectors of the population in various regions of the world, and wherein religion can be a factor that exacerbates such conflict and violence, harnessing the power of religion towards directions of reconciliation, creativity, and altruistic action, remains a crucial task for humankind. This volume addresses a question especially relevant in our day: do people who profess religious commitment or affiliation in a particular religious community tend to nurture altruistic kinds of attitude and action more than others? Social scientists present results of their empirical studies on Japanese society, as well as on North American, European, Indian, and Thai societies, to focus on this issue and offer insightful reflections on the relationship between religion and society. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-09-01,J. Jeremy Wisnewski,"Torture, Terrorism, and the Use of Violence (also available as Review Journal of Political Philosophy Volume 6, Issue Number 1)",Paperback,9781847188311,29.99,"This volume brings together new and innovative work on questions of violence--and in particular on the moral and political questions surrounding torture and terrorism. Each essay contributes to our understanding of the limits and scope of violence, and how we might appropriately respond to it, in the context of concrete concerns. Questions include: is torture ever justified? How are we to understand terrorism? Should we believe the claim that torture is sometimes necessary? Is conscientious objection a tenable position? ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-10-01,Gavin Grindon,Aesthetics and Radical Politics,Hardback,9781847189790,24.99,"There has always been a strong connection historically between aesthetics and radical politics, and this is no less true for the global justice movement’s current preoccupation with cultural approaches to political action. The essays collected here seek to engage with past and present convergences between the theories and practices of artists and writers and the theories and practices of movements for radical social change. There is already a massive amount of literature on Marxist approaches to aesthetics, art and literature, and whilst recognising the usefulness of such approaches, the essays collected here attempt to engage with culture from other radical critical positions - whether they be anarchist, autonomist, ecological or otherwise. Such perspectives have often been overlooked historically, but it is arguable that they now more centrally influence the activities of radical artists and activists. As such, the perspectives of these essays, which are often drawn from or inspired by the practices of the current global justice movement, exhibit an exhilarating political and generational break with the suppositions of earlier radical theoretical approaches to cultural critique. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-10-01,Nick Trakakis and Daniel Cohen,Essays on Free Will and Moral Responsibility,Hardback,9781847188670,34.99,"The problem of free will has fascinated philosophers since ancient times: Do we have free will, or at least the kind of free will that seems necessary for moral responsibility? Does determinism – the idea that everything that happens is necessitated to happen, given the past and the laws of nature – threaten the commonly held assumption that we are indeed free and morally responsible? Although these questions have been widely discussed in the past, the present volume offers a variety of new perspectives from philosophers who have made significant contributions to this debate over recent years, including Derk Pereboom, Robert Kane, Ishtiyaque Haji, Michael McKenna, John Martin Fischer, David Widerker and Saul Smilansky. The emphasis in these essays is not merely on free will, but on allied notions such as moral responsibility, moral obligation, fairness and meaningfulness, and on whether any room can be made for these notions in a deterministic or an indeterministic universe. "," ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-10-01,Kenneth Holmqvist and Jarosław Płuciennik,Infinity in Language: Conceptualization of the Experience of the Sublime,Hardback,9781847189554,29.99,"The book Infinity in Language is a research monograph on the problem of the sublime in language. The authors use methods from cognitive semantics and poetics in order to thoroughly describe how the sublime is used in language. It is a unique attempt to account for one of the most fascinating problems of the human mind: the concept of infinity, and how the experience of infinity and enthusiasm is expressed in language. The book includes new findings in cognitive semantics relating to rhetorical figures such as hyperbole, gradation and accumulation. Cognitive semantics has focused so far on metaphor. This book fills the gap and gives an account of other rhetorical figures. It contains also a historical review of major theories of the sublime by Pseudo-Longinos, Boileau, Burke, Kant, Schiller, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and others, i.e. it spans a period from the first century AD till twentieth century. The authors answer the question how is it possible to present the unpresentable. It is an attempt to outline and develop a model of the rhetoric of the sublime. The model consists of three elements: antimimetic evocation of the unimaginable, a mimesis of emotions and figures of the discourse of the sublime. The books argues in favour of non-cartesian semantics which takes into account not only reason but also emotions, especially very intensive ones. However, the authors also express reservations regarding omnipresent rhetoric of the sublime. They follow those thinkers in the human history who argued against fanaticism and in favour of tolerance and empathy. The book is an original result of an interdisciplinary and international collaboration, lasting many years, between a cognitive scientist and a linguist and literary scholar. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-11-01,H. G. Callaway,"A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy, by William James; A New Philosophical Reading",Hardback,9781847188687,34.99,"This new edition of William James’s 1909 classic, A Pluralistic Universe reproduces the original text, only modernizing the spelling. The books has been annotated throughout to clarify James’s points of reference and discussion. There is a new, fuller index, a brief chronology of James’s life, and a new bibliography—chiefly based on James’s own references. The editor, H.G. Callaway, has included a new Introduction which elucidates the legacy of Jamesian pluralism to survey some related questions of contemporary American society. A Pluralistic Universe was the last major book James published during his life time. It is a substantial philosophical work, devoted to a thorough-going criticism of Hegelian monism and Absolutism—and the exploration of philosophical and social-theological alternatives. Our world of some one hundred years on is much the better for James’s contributions; and understanding James’s pluralism deeply contributes even now to America’s self-understanding. At present, we are more certain that American is, and is best, a pluralistic society, than we are of what particular forms our pluralism should take. Keeping an eye out for social interpretations of Jamesian pluralism, this new philosophical reading casts light on our twenty-first century alternatives by reference to prior American experience and developments. ","Context for Meaning and Analysis: “...a good and interesting read, and a book well worth working through and taking seriously.” ―Erkenntnis 46, 1997. American Ethics: “In summary, this is an indispensable book for those who want to know the history of North American ethical thought. Beyond that it helps the reader to a profound understanding of the reality of the contemporary culture of the United States.” ―Anuario Filosofico 35 (Spain), 2002. “…Stroh and Callaway have succeeded in compiling a very rich source book, indeed.. They are remarkably successful in bringing together many parts of the American narrative from a pluralistic range of sources without losing track of its central themes. Their introductions to the various chapters and writers are both succinct and very readable and helpful. … this is an outstanding book. The editors have created a diverse source book that will be of interest not only to students of ethics, but also to those wishing to understand more clearly the political, religious, economic, aesthetic, and individualistic themes that render unique the narrative of the American quest for the good life.” ―Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society 39, 2003. W.V. Quine, The Immanuel Kant Lectures: “The reader will fully appreciate the extreme importance of the Kant Lectures by reading the translator’s illuminating Introduction to the book. … Callaway does not content himself with stressing the strong points in the Kant Lectures. He also takes a stance on a few important issues discussed in the book and suggests alternative solutions of his own..” ―Dialectica 59, 2005. R.W. Emerson, The Conduct of Life, A Philosophical Reading: “We find before us an excellent edition of the book which the influential American thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802-82) published in December of 1860, four months before the outbreak of the American Civil War. The central question which Emerson poses in this volume concerns the conduct of life, that is, of how to live. ... As an essentially religious thinker, profoundly preoccupied with the human soul and with the development of human potentialities, he has always firmly opposed to slavery: one cannot refuse to others human beings the development of their distinctively human potentialities” ―Anuario Filosofico 35 (Spain), 2006. “Callaway intends this text for students and the educated public. And it does its job well. …Callaway’s work goes along way toward helping students prepare for a class discussion because they can do some of their own basic research …before class begins. And the professor can easily do the work of tying together the components of Callaway’s introduction into a focus relevant for the class at hand. Finally, Emerson’s work itself is, as always, a fecund source for reflection and discussion,….” ―Newsletter of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, November 2007. R.W. Emerson, Society and Solitude: “H.G. Callaway provides a remarkably rich resource for understanding the historical background as well as the literary and societal influences on Emerson. He traces Emerson’s accounts of morality and law as realist and cognitivist, and he outlines Emerson’s relationship to Adam’s Federalists and their development into the Whig party.” ―Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., President, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. ""Howard Callaway's reent edition of James' Hibbert Lectures joins the Harvard edition of them, with a foreword by Richard J. Bernstein, as an indispensable volume of James's work. Indeed, Callaway's editorial introduction, together with his copious annotations, constitutes, no less, a significant work in its own right in the scholarship of James. Harvard's and Callaway's editions are not in competition; rather, they nicely complement each other...A Pluralistic Universe, on Callaway's view, is considerably more than a book of merely historical interest. James Hibbert Lectures, particularly Callaway's edition, belongs in the libraries of all those interested in philosophy, American studies, history and political science."" Richard A. S. Hall, Fayetteville State University, The Pluralist, 4:3, 2009 ""Howard Callaway here has given us a thoroughly annotated reading of James's 1909 pragmatic classic... Callaway's notes and introduction add a layer of clarity, and shine a spotlight on James's own important intellectual kinship...[his] voice has long been a civil, engaging presence online, in forums devoted to American philosophy. Many who have known him as an indefatigable poster and charitable replier now have the happy opportunity to know him as a careful reader and guide to this indispensable work."" Phil Oliver, Middle Tennessee State University, Newsletter of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, No. 108, November 2009 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-11-01,Richard J. Gelm,"How American Politics Works: Philosophy, Pragmatism, Personality and Profit",Hardback,978-1-4438-0006-8,34.99,"American politics is criticized and belittled by media critics and the public, yet the system is held out as a model for the world. The paradox of this simultaneous cynicism and adulation is rooted in the conflict between the human motives that drive politics. Crisply and clearly written with numerous historical examples, How American Politics Works explains the complex and sometimes confusing American political system in a vibrant and accessible light. Documented with recent and historical scholarship presented clearly in laymen’s terms, How American Politics Works explores the multiple dimensions of politics and the source of Americans’ disillusionment with their government through the “four Ps”: Philosophy, Pragmatism, Personality and Profit. Philosophical and moral principles underpin the key political institutions in America, but values are challenged in the quest to achieve workable political solutions. Policy is rarely made to conform to lofty principles alone. It often results from short-term incremental compromise, driven by people in pursuit of the public good and their own personal self-interest and profit. How American Politics Works explains the inner workings of the American political system, including the power of ideas, political compromise, powerful personalities and the preeminent position of money. While Americans’ high ideals are often illusive in the rough and tumble of political battles, and the public’s trust is bruised with every political scandal, balancing idealism and individual virtue with ambition and self-interest is the dynamic and safeguard of American politics. How American Politics Works offers a comprehensive presentation of the realities, challenges and possibilities of the American political system to bring an understanding, fascination and dedication to the wider public. ","“This is a splendid book and one that should be fully utilized by everyone with an interest in politics and our governing system.” —Former United States Senator George McGovern, Ph.D. in History, Northwestern University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-11-20,H.G. Callaway,"Meaning without Analyticity: Essays on Logic, Language and Meaning",Hardback,9781847189752,34.99,"Meaning without Analyticity draws upon the author’s essays and articles, over a period of 20 years, focused on language, logic and meaning. The book explores the prospect of a non-behavioristic theory of cognitive meaning which rejects the analytic-synthetic distinction, Quinean behaviorism, and the logical and social-intellectual excesses of extreme holism. Cast in clear, perspicuous language and oriented to scientific discussions, this book takes up the challenges of philosophical communication and evaluation implicit in the recent revival of the pragmatist tradition—especially those arising from its relation to prior American analytic thought. This volume continues the work of Callaway’s 1993 book, Context for Meaning and Analysis, building on the “turn toward pragmatism.” The premise of this collection is that we begin to answer the questions posed by the revival of the pragmatist tradition by bring it into fuller contact with American analytic philosophy of the sort which eclipsed it during the Cold War. In this book, a lively and continuing interest in Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson and Putnam meets up with equal engagement and competence concerning C.S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey. The formalism of analytic philosophy encounters a logically articulate version of the contextualism implicit in the pragmatist tradition, and orientation to natural science is supplemented by a systematic stress on social and cultural contexts of inquiry. ","""The title of H. G. Callaway’s Meaning without Analyticity speaks for itself. It announces an approach to cognitive meaning which denies tenable distinctions between the analytic and synthetic and the à priori and à posteriori. But it also avoids some of the standard skeptical responses to these rejections, resisting in particular Quine’s anti-realism in semantics: his theses of the indeterminacy of translation, the inscrutability of reference—and his unrestricted holism. Accordingly, Meaning without Analyticity turns toward a more realist empiricism in the theory of linguistic meaning. … The book aims for an analytic approach to cognitive meaning, informed by the recent revival of the pragmatist tradition. This is analytic philosophy in its scientifically oriented version, including the aim for precision of expression and argument—and with an eye to the scientific standing of empirical semantics. … Callaway’s theory of meaning is a contextualist one. It provides that the meaning of a statement is the set of its logical implications in the theory or belief-system in which it arises. This creates a stark contrast to Quinean unrestricted holism. … Meaning without Analyticity is a crisply argued and attractively compact book. It is a valuable contribution to a philosophical pragmatism about meaning, crafted with a view to a cognitively based pluralism of the sciences."" Professor John Woods, FRSC, Director, The Abductive Systems Group, Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-12-01,Bernd Herzogenrath,An [Un]Likely Alliance: Thinking Environment[s] with Deleuze/Guattari,Hardback,978-1-4438-0036-5,39.99,"This volume presents an original and in-depth study devoted to the discussion and relevance of the notion of ‘the environment’ and ‘ecology’ within the frame-work and ‘ontology’ of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Their non-dualist and materialist re-thinking of these issues is analyzed from various positions within Cultural Studies and the Sciences. ‘Thinking Environment[s]’ with Deleuze|Guattari is thus far removed from what might be termed ‘(intellectual) tree-hugging’—it is a call to think complexity, and to complex thinking, a way to think the environment [and environments] as negotiations of human and nonhuman dynamics. Such a thinking by default carefully evades [Cartesian] dualisms such as ‘nature’ versus ‘culture,’ ‘biology’ versus ‘technology,’ or ‘natural’ versus ‘artificial.’ At a time when the distinctions [as well as the transitions] between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ are getting more and more fluid, Deleuze|Guattari's alliance with environmental thinking turns out to be a rather fruitful, exciting, and likely one, one that allows for a single mode of articulating environmental, evolutionary and technological registers and relations and for the conceptualization of a general, non-anthropocentric ecoscience. This book thus aims at a radical re-thinking of these concepts from a Deleuzian|Guattarian (i.e. non-dualist and materialist) perspective. ","""..the diversity and high standard evident throughout this collection convincingly underlines Herzogenrath's claim that the most effective way fo environmental philosophy to proceed is through the cultivation of multiple ecologics."" Sam Wiseman, The Kelvingrove Review, Issue 5, 2010 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-12-01,Gordana Dodig Crnkovic and Susan A. J. Stuart ,"Computation, Information, Cognition: The Nexus and the Liminal",Paperback,978-1-4438-0040-2,19.99,"This book draws together a number of important strands in contemporary approaches to the philosophical and scientific questions that emerge when dealing with the issues of computing, information, cognition and the conceptual issues that arise at their intersections. It discovers and develops the connections at the borders and in the interstices of disciplines and debates, and presents a range of essays that deal with the currently vigorous concerns of the philosophy of information, ontology creation and control, bioinformation and biosemiotics, computational and post-computational approaches to the philosophy of cognitive science, computational linguistics, ethics, and education. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-12-01,Marion Kostanski,The Power of Compassion: An Exploration of the Psychology of Compassion in the 21st Century,Paperback,978-1-4438-0048-8,17.99,"We entered the 21st Century full of anxiety, with the promised threat of a millennium bug that could potentially cripple our lives. Since then we have witnessed an increasing level of angst and despair across the world as warnings of climate change, and economic hardships have been forecast. Wars have raged, a new evil has entered our consciousness, and the word “terrorism” has come to the forefront of our lexicon. Millions of innocent people have lost their lives. Today we are witnessing the ever-increasing state of displaced persons being shuffled from makeshift home to make shift home, being locked up in camps and cut off from the rest of society. Everywhere around us we hear about increases in depression and mental health disorders among the general population. Young people are checking out of the mainstream, there are phenomenal increases in the rate of suicide and older people are living out wretched lives, isolated and alone. Multinational corporations have been accused of extorting vulnerable peoples for economic gain and consumption seems to be our new idol. What is becoming of our society? How do we make sense of or world? The essays in this book provide a compelling insight and reflection into the work of health professionals as they struggle to make sense of their work and the world around them in this new century. From exploring the concept of Living Compassion, working with the good, bad and ugly aspects of our lives, and reflecting on practice, the authors discuss their ideas on compassion. They offer you, the reader, an opportunity to reflect on your own daily practice and to go forward with a sense of shared humanity. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008-12-01,J. Jeremy Wisnewski,"Torture, Terrorism, and the Use of Violence, Vol. II (also available as Review Journal of Political Philosophy Volume 6, Issue Number 2)",Paperback,978-1-4438-0023-5,12.99,"This volume brings together new and innovative work on questions of violence--and in particular on the moral and political questions surrounding torture and terrorism. Each essay contributes to our understanding of the limits and scope of violence, and how we might appropriately respond to it, in the context of concrete concerns. Questions include: is torture ever justified? How are we to understand terrorism? Should we believe the claim that torture is sometimes necessary? Is conscientious objection a tenable position? ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-01-01,E. Joe Johnson and Byron R. Wells,An American Voltaire: Essays in Memory of J. Patrick Lee,Hardback,978-1-4438-0142-3,39.99,"This collection of essays was assembled to honor the memory of the late, eminent Voltaire scholar J. Patrick Lee. It includes seventeen essays by prominent scholars from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France on a variety of topics in French eighteenth-century studies. Essay titles include: “A New Genre: l’Opéra moral / Moral Opera in Eighteenth-Century France,” “Voltaire and the Uses of Censorship: The Example of the Lettres Philosophiques,” “Enlightenment Intertextuality: The Case of Heraldry in the Encyclopédie méthodique,” “Sex as Satire in Voltaire's Fiction,” “Violence, Levity, and the Dictionary in Old Regime France: Chaudon’s Dictionnaire anti-philosophique,” “L’abbé, l’amazone, le bon roi et les frelons,” “Greuze’s Self-Portraits: Figures of Artistic Identity,” “From Forest to Field: Sylvan Elegists of Eighteenth-Century France,” “The Falsification of Voltaire's Letters and the Public Persona of the Author: From the Lettres secrettes (1765) to the Commentaire historique (1776),” “The Baron de Saint-Castin, Bricaire de la Dixmerie, and Azakia (1765),” “John Law and the Rhetoric of Calculation,” “‘Le Roi des Bulgares’: Was Voltaire's Satire on Frederick the Great just too Opaque?” “Voltaire and the Voyage to Rome,” “Textual liaisons: Voltaire, Paméla and Don Quixote,” “Les petits livres du grand homme: polémique et combat philosophique chez Voltaire,” “Sentimental Horror: Enlightenment Tragedy and the Rise of the Genre Terrible,” “Voltaire and the Comic Genre: Polemics and Rhetoric.” ","""The volume evidences qualities of Pat Lee's own scholarship: the attention to detail, the challenging and/or refining of accepted ideas, the stimulus to further research, in sum, the desire to encourager les autres."" Simon Davies, Queens University Belfast in New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century Journal, Spring 2010 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-01-01,Anita Kasabova,On Autobiographical Memory,Hardback,978-1-4438-0110-2,29.99,"The aim of this book is to provide an account of autobiographical memory, the memory of episodes in the subject’s autobiography and to answer the following questions: what happens when we remember something? Why do we remember some things rather than others? The main assumptions in this book are that autobiographical memory is an active structure of a representational nature and that autobiographical memory is a construct of the imagination enabled by a semantic principle: the ground-consequence relation. Anita Kasabova reconstructs the epistemological accounts of memory by the Prague philosopher and mathematician, Bernard Bolzano and the Prague physiologist Ewald Hering as well as the phenomenological accounts by Edmund Husserl and Roman Ingarden, and discusses various accounts put forward within analytic philosophy. She examines the trace theory and its relation to the phenomenology of autobiographical memory and the different temporal perspectives that characterize this form of memory. Kasabova formulates a philosophical explication of how autobiographical memory works, dealing with issues such as: ‘what are the defining features of autobiographical memory?’; ‘how is it structured and how does it function?’; ‘what is a recollection and what are the necessary and (for the most part) sufficient conditions for a recollection to occur?’ Kasabova argues that such conditions are a sense of self and a sense of connectedness of the self that is semantic rather than causal, the subject’s sense of ownership of past experiences and the capacity of imagination: for mental time travel and thinking about past episodes, you have to be able to produce representations not bound to the current situation. It is argued that access to the subject’s personal past cannot occur otherwise than by construction in imagination. In order to reproduce a past experience in the present, imagination is necessary for representing a past episode as if it were present. Other necessary conditions for autobiographical memory are time-awareness, a continuous temporal reference frame, a successive temporal order and the capacity to refer back to previous positions in time. Finally, semantic relations of part-whole and ground-consequence are crucial for explaining autobiographical memory. It is argued that the part-whole relation is the principle of the memory trace and that the grounding relation co-ordinates the subject’s perspective on past episodes in recollective statements. Kasabova argues that autobiographical memory is basically semantic, as it is grounded by and constructed through a ‘sense-making’ relation expressed by the explanatory conjunct ‘because’: we recall certain experiences or actions rather than other because we are sensitive to the reasons for having experienced it. ""The new book by Anita Kasabova fills a gap between traditional philosophical “armchair” speculations about memory and contemporary cognitive theories, which have grown out of extensive experimental research. The book’s main idea that autobiographical memory is not a mere recollection but rather an active reconstruction of our past memories is not an entirely new one. Anita Kasabova, however, provides a new take on this idea by revealing that the theories of Bolzano, Hering, and Husserl not only bear historical significance but, properly reconstructed, they might be viewed as an important contribution to the contemporary interdisciplinary studies of memory. An appreciable achievement of the book is the chosen conceptual framework: it makes the idiosyncratic language of Bolzano and Husserl accessible to contemporary cognitive scientists as well as making the recent cognitive theories understandable for the traditional philosophical scholars. Even if this were the only achievement of Anita Kasabova (and it is not) it would represent her monograph as a book of a great merit for a large community of memory scholars."" —Assoc. Prof. Lilia Gurova, Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology, New Bulgarian University ","“Anita Kasabova’s book is the first systematic analytical study on this topic. Her main thesis is that autobiographical memory is the awareness of one’s past experiences as a result of an act of recollection. The arguments she presents are compelling, thus belonging to the best analytical tradition. Moreover, they are nicely accompanied by rich phenomenological descriptions. I highly recommend this book not only to philosophers, psychologists, cognitive scientists and their students, but also to literary critics working on autobiography.” Clotilde Calabi, Associate Professor of Theories of Language and Mind, Philosophy Department, Università degli Studi di Milano ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-01-01,Nikolay Omelchenko,The Human Being in Contemporary Philosophical Conceptions,Hardback,978-1-4438-0143-0,44.99,"This book is a collection of the selected proceedings of the 4th International Conference “Human Being in Contemporary Philosophical Conceptions,” which was held under the patronage of UNESCO at Volgograd State University (Russia) on May 28–31, 2007. In the letter to the organizers, Mr. Koïchiro Matsuura wrote: “I should like to congratulate you on this important initiative to promote philosophical reflection, which is one of the central objectives of UNESCO’s Intersectoral Strategy on Philosophy.” There is an interesting fact: the 19th World Congress of Philosophy in Moscow (1993) had no session on philosophical anthropology, the next Congress in Boston (1998) had one such session, the 21st Congress of Philosophy in Istanbul (2003) had already four sessions, and the 22nd World Congress of Philosophy in Seoul (2008) had six sessions on philosophical anthropology. Obviously, we may observe a new anthropological renaissance in contemporary thought. This book serves the philosophical anthropology becoming as well. Perhaps an idea of integral studies is the most attractive trend in the contemporary philosophy and science. The book presents an experience in integral philosophy of human being. Also, the development of philosophical anthropology is closely connected with practical tasks. Our political activities, welfare projects and educational programs can become really useful only when we are guided by knowledge of what human being is, what we are able to do, what are own needs, and what we must become. Philosophical anthropology could correctly define the research purposes of all human sciences. This volume includes various reflexions and styles of thinking. By this, all the papers demonstrate metaphysics of respect for human being. The contributors, scholars from the different countries, are open for free discussions and fresh ideas. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-01-01,David A. Ross,The Poetics of Philosophy [A Reading of Plato],Hardback,978-1-4438-0115-7,49.99,"The Poetics of Philosophy is my attempt to hear what academic philosophy attempts to silence, namely, how reason resonates with madness. It is thus a stinging of the great steed of academia in order to recover and re-experience what otherwise would be repressed by the exigencies of bureaucratic-commodity life in the late capitalist world. An analysis of Plato’s principal dialogues with a view towards developing the author’s conception of thinking, knowing, and loving, it incorporates the insights of Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Derrida. Provoking the world mind to reflect upon its phenomenological possibility for Being dispersed within its daily routines or business, the book argues for the metaphysicality of physical reality articulated through the narrative trope of fractal dialectical logic. The present volume’s more general implications extend the insights of the author’s previous work in the area of social science. I refer to the possibility for world communist revolution, which is predicated on communism’s thorough ridding itself of its naïve materialist perspective, the relics of a Newtonian Universe, and its embracing of a fractal-dialectical logic (or similar) that is better able to incorporate the yearning for immortality, desire to experience beauty, and the need to have a meaningful life that define human species life. To articulate such a framework is the aim of my general research. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-01-01,Kathleen O’Dwyer,The Possibility of Love: An Interdisciplinary Analysis,Hardback,978-1-4438-0118-8,39.99,"The Possibility of Love is an exploration of a concept close to the human heart. Grounded in the ordinary, everyday experiences of human living, the book provides an exploration of the diverse obstacles to the experience of love, the consequences of love’s absence, and the unquenchable desire for love which propels, influences and ultimately motivates much of human behaviour. The Possibility of Love poses the question: is love actually possible between human beings, or is it an ideal, a fantasy, an illusion, or a comforting aspiration which enables a palliative denial and distortion of the reality of human being? This expansive question is approached through an interdisciplinary analysis. The author addresses the question of love’s possibility as it is explored in a selection of literature from the disciplines of philosophy, psychoanalysis and poetry. The interdisciplinary nature of the study is based on the assertion of an interconnection between the three disciplines, and that this interconnection enables a unique and insightful exploration of the question of love’s possibility. Thus, the question is explored from diverse view-points, and also from different time-frames; convergences and divergences are noted and discussed, and conclusions are drawn from the ensuing findings. The book is essentially a philosophical analysis of an emotion that significantly impacts on human experience. It attests to the gradually increasing acknowledgement of the power of emotional experience in the search for knowledge, wisdom and truth. Thus, it is a uniquely honest exploration of human nature in contemporary times. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-01-01,Shlomo Shoham,The Word of Light: Piercing the Veil of Chaos,Hardback,978-1-4438-0102-7,39.99,"One of the fundamental enigmas of our existence, and for that matter, God’s existence, is the act of creation. Has the cosmos been created ex nihilo or was it an intelligent design by God? Does God, having created the world, let it evolve and develop on its own, subject to the rules of evolution and chance; or does God intervene in every step of evolution in a deus ex machina manner? What is the role of man in creation? Is it as central as existentialism and quantum mechanics assure us: that without human consciousness interacting with energy-matter, there would not be any objects and life forms? Is man the crown of creation permanently, or once evolution forms a more effective connecting agent between spirit and energy-matter, will man be relegated to the world of fossils? The book concludes with a thorough examination of human norms, values and morals. As such, this book constitutes a comprehensive treatise on the genesis of the world, the birth of God, and the role of man. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-02-01,Benedict O’Donohoe and Roy Elveton,Sartre’s Second Century,Hardback,978-1-4438-0161-4,39.99,"Sartre's Second Century reflects the richness of Sartre's vision of the human condition, the diversity of the means he employed in grappling with it, and the lengthy trajectory of his itinerary, in a variety of wider cultural perspectives. The centenary of Sartre's birth in 2005 was the primary occasion for many of the essays included in this volume. Hosted by the UK or North American Sartre Societies, contributors participating in Sartre's centennial celebrations were asked to address the central themes and overall development of his life and thought. As the present collection shows, the attempt to present Sartre in a retrospective light also provides a basis for assessing the relevance of his work for the new century. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-02-01,J. Donald Ragsdale,Structures as Argument: The Visual Persuasiveness of Museums and Places of Worship,Paperback,978-1-4438-0183-6,19.99,"Structures as Argument assesses museums, places of worship, monuments, and cemetery stones as means of visual persuasion. It argues that structures are equally capable of influencing viewers as speeches or advertisements are and that to miss this essential feature of them is to fail in understanding their cultural roles. The book spotlights museums ranging from such cultural icons as the Louvre and the British Museum, to such museums of collective memory as the Anne Frank House, to museums of pure visual persuasion such as the Doge’s Palace in Venice. It features places of worship which range from Notre-Dame de Paris, to the Spanish missions of San Antonio, Texas, to the Protestant churches of America and includes a chapter on non-Western structures such as Chinese museums and Buddhist temples. Structures as Argument makes a significant contribution to the theory of persuasion, visual communication, and art history. It utilizes a theory of visual signs developed by Paul Messaris out of the semiotic theory of C. S. Peirce. In so doing, it demonstrates that artifacts of war, cathedral iconography, positioning of art objects for effect, and the art of gravestone sculpture all may be thought of in terms of means of social influence. ","""Structures as Argument: The Visual Persuasiveness of Museums and Places of Worship edited by J. Donald Ragsdale opens a novel way to view and interact with structures that most people have grown to take for granted. Museums and places of worships are reframed as much more than containers of people and artifacts. Rather, readers are asked to consider the designers of the containers and the arrangers of their interiors as very smart strategists with messages to put forward; and to consider ourselves as members of their audience. Thus those structures may be to their audience a cultural icon, or a polemic or a reminder of collective memory or a partisan advocate or finally an exercise in “pure visual persuasion.” Ragsdale and his co-authors furnish detailed and fascinating commentary on the likes of otherwise familiar structures (taken in order): the Louvre, the museum at Dachau, the Ann Frank House, the Tate Modern, and the Sistine Chapel and many others. With this skeleton in place the chapters in Structures as Argument flesh out the thesis contained in the title by extending and applying it to museums of natural history plus their iterations on their websites and to European gothic cathedrals, Spanish missions of the American southwest, the contemporary protestant church scene and to nonwestern manifestations of this same rhetorical impulse. Throughout their whole treatment, Ragsdale and his co-authors employ the elaborated likelihood model of Petty and Cacioppo (1985) to demonstrate how structures take the peripheral route into our awareness, depending on “music, light, color, scent, and other such mood-inducing forms . . . [that are] not to be thought about critically but rather to be felt or experienced directly . . . .” In short, the book prepares one to see the museum or place of worship with new eyes and to be wary of their builders’ persuasive designs.” —Richard L. Conville, Professor, Department of Speech Communication, The University of Southern Mississippi ""Ragsdale and his colleagues provide the first systematic approach to the varied ways our museums, cathedrals, churches, shrines, and other monuments create persuasive arguments. What distinguishes this approach is the careful integration of central communication concepts drawn from persuasion theory. Because of the cultural and temporal diversity of these varied examples, they also draw upon concepts from intercultural communication theory to connect the persuasive appeals to the widely varied audiences. The exciting examples range from prominent museums and great cathedrals to Asian shrines and cowboy churches in rural America. Such a widespread array provides convincing evidence of the strength of the central arguments in the book. This book will appeal to a very wide audience ranging from tourists to experts who are interested in visual communication and persuasion, to art historians and museum curators. The writing style permits ready access by the layperson and will challenge them to recognize the serious historical and cultural implications of what they might casually observe. This book is an early entry in a comparatively new field of study and will expand the reader’s view, no matter how sophisticated, to embrace unexpected purposes associated with these visual structures. Nearly any reader can identify with one or more parts of this wonderful tour of these somewhat neglected dimensions of culture."" Dr. Brooks Hill, Professor/Chair, Department of Speech and Drama, Trinity University ""...offers a valuable contribution to visual rhetoric literature and rhetorical scholarship in general. Through an analysis of museums, places of worship, and monuments across the world, Ragsdale and colleagues advance visual rhetoric scholarship by presenting a convincing case that 'structures can and do function persuasively'. Scholars from an array of disciplines will find Strucures as Arguments to be an insightful discussion of the intersection of rhetoric, visual communication, architecture, and art history. Clearly organized and easilty accessible, Ragsdale successfully crafts Structures.. in a manner that provesusefulto both the academic just beginning to consider the persuasiveness of visuals as well as the scholar well trained in visual rhetoric."" Dustin A. Wood, Texas A&M University, Rhetoric and Public Affairs ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-02-01,"Jordan Zlatev, Mats Andrén, Marlene Johansson Falck and Carita Lundmark",Studies in Language and Cognition,Hardback,978-1-4438-0174-4,54.99,"Using a plethora of concepts, theories and methods, the theoretical and empirical studies described in this volume are united in their approach of treating language not in isolation (e.g. as a “module”), but as both based on structures and processes of cognition, and at the same time as affecting the human mind. The book is organized in 7 parts, corresponding to some of the major fields in language research today: (a) linguistic meta-theory and general issues, (b) lexical meaning, (c) metaphor, (d) grammar, (e) pragmatics, (f) gesture and bodily communication, and (g) historical linguistics. At the same time, the non-modular approach to language adopted by the authors is reflected by the fact that there are no strict boundaries between the parts. Thus, the book is a valuable contribution to the growing interdisciplinary field of Language and Cognition. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-02-01,Mirosław Patalon,The Philosophical Basis of Inter-religious Dialogue: The Process Perspective,Hardback,978-1-4438-0164-5,39.99,"In the present epoch of tensions between civilizations, challenges being brought by globalization processes and the necessity of the coexistence of various cultures and traditions, the subject of inter-religious dialogue seems to be particularly significant. Can religions remain isolated islands? Are their claims of being the only source of theological truth justified? Or should it rather be understood as an effect of interaction between different points of view and common effort of looking for the answers to the questions about God and his relations to the world? What is the role of dialogue? Is it only a politically correct element or maybe something more essential – the basis of reasonable existence and development of religion? Should the direction traced by 20th century's partisans of ecumenical movements be widened in order to embrace also non Christian religions? What is the orthodoxy and where are its boundaries? The process philosophy creates a convenient and favorable atmosphere for this kind of considerations. The articles of this selection represent different points of view of the discussed topic. The book is addressed to all who deal with the inter-religious dialogue: both clergy and laymen as well as scholars and students interested in the subject. ","""Full of possibility across traditions, this pearl is worth the purchase of the book"" Carla Mae Streeter, O.P, Aquinas Institute of Theology, St. Louis, MO in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies 45:1 2010. ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-03-01,Eliza Borkowska,But He Talked of the Temple of Man’s Body: Blake’s Revelation Unlocked,Hardback,978-1-4438-0329-8,39.99,"Starting with Locke’s philosophy of language, which turns words into bricks and uses them to build a rigid system of science and morality, this book is a response to Blake’s un-Lockian thought through an analysis of his linguistic practices. It is an attempt to understand why Blake says what he says the way he does. While being a study of Blake’s poetics, the book is at the same time a poetic study that never attempts to translate poetry into prose. It reads like a narrative, telling of an effort to build, an attempt to destroy, and then rebuild again. Primarily aimed at Blake readers, it will also interest those interested in Enlightenment and Romanticism, as well as students of art, religion or philosophy. And, since Blake’s criticism of Locke is in fact Blake’s criticism of the main assumptions of modernity, the book should prove a stimulating experience to all those who do not mind looking at the reality from some critical distance. ","""… Written with sparkling critical acumen, Borkowska’s book is a passionate plea for Blake’s systematic search for the Living Ideal hidden behind the veil of human-made abstractions …"" —Małgorzata Grzegorzewska, Warsaw University “… A lucid and eloquent investigation at the end of which we obtain interesting, sometimes surprising results which take us beyond the standard opinions about Blake's straightforward rejection of Locke's ideas. Blake who emerges from this book is not merely anti-Locke but, the point which Borkowska demonstrates with zest and intellectual passion, un-Locke, not a figure of non-reading or anti-reading but one of critical mis- or un-reading …” —Tadeusz Sławek, University of Silesia “Eliza Borkowska provides an erudite, lively discussion of the poetic strategies by which Blake disrupts and transforms Locke’s “temple of rationalism.” Borkowska’s treatment of Locke is careful and respectful as she articulates precisely those aspects of his work that Blake felt compelled to reimagine. Well informed by Blake scholarship from all eras, and displaying a rare command of the full Blake oeuvre, Borkowska constructs a theoretical defense of the neologisms and other linguistic subversions that have made his work seem almost perversely difficult. The book will reward Blake scholars with fresh insights about familiar texts and images, but Borkowska’s analyses—for all their nuance and complexity—are always clear enough to serve as an advanced introduction to the study of Blake and the intellectual paradigm against which he reacted.” - Wayne Glausser, Professor of English, DePauw University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-03-01,"Sarah A. Mattice, Geoff Ashton and Joshua P. Kimber",Comparative Philosophy Today and Tomorrow: Proceedings from the 2007 Uehiro CrossCurrents Philosophy Conference,Paperback,978-1-4438-0203-1,44.99,"Whether it be the China of Confucius or the Germany of Jurgen Moltmann, premodern India or the World Trade Organization, philosophy has brought us face-to-face with the pressing issues of our times. More often than not, these inquiries have stimulated creative responses to the opportunities and problems that shape our experiences. But the responsiveness of inquiry to its respective concerns can only grow according to the dimensions of the conversation underwriting the inquiry itself. With its comparative and interdisciplinary approach, Comparative Philosophy Today and Tomorrow: Proceedings from the 2007 Uehiro CrossCurrents Philosophy Conference creates a space for juxtaposing philosophical views on shared themes, thereby stimulating fresh insight into issues of contemporary significance. From self-cultivation to global justice, from environmental ethics to the interrelation of religion and science, this collection of essays highlights the central role of philosophy, and comparative philosophy in particular, for understanding and appreciating the connections and discontinuities of East and West, if you will, of past, present and future. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-03-01,"Graeme Watson, Barbara Gabriella Renzi, Elisabetta Viggiani and Máiréad Collins",Friends and Foes Volume I: Friendship and Conflict in Philosophy and the Arts,Hardback,978-1-4438-0332-8,34.99,"The product of an international, multi-disciplinary conference at Queen’s University Belfast, the two-volume Friends and Foes series offers an illuminating investigation of the relationship between friendship and conflict by established and emerging scholars. In this first volume, which collects together philosophical and cultural essays on the topic, the authors raise and tackle some of the most pertinent issues central to the understanding, and making, of friendship. What constitutes friendship? What challenges, duties and pleasures does friendship entail? The ambiguity of friendship is a recurring theme in the book, and Mark Vernon’s essay on the philosophical history of thinking about friendship’s ambiguity provides the perfect point of entry for discussion of the compelling literary and theatrical representations which follow, in the work of writers such as Maria Edgeworth, Gregory Burke, and Edgar Allan Poe. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-03-01,David D. Kim,Georg Simmel in Translation: Interdisciplinary Border Crossings in Culture and Modernity,Paperback,978-1-4438-0202-4,19.99,"Though Georg Simmel considered himself a philosopher, his intellectual influence went well beyond the confines of one academic discipline at the turn of the last century. His writings on money, modernity, and the metropolis, as well as the artwork, female culture, and psychologism, left a significant mark on contemporaries like Walter Benjamin, Wilhelm Worringer, and Max Weber. Nevertheless, his name soon disappeared from public memory and scholarly discourse. In Georg Simmel in Translation, scholars from the Humanities and the Social Sciences cut through time and space to illustrate ways in which Simmel was, and still is, carried from one context to another. From Imperial Berlin to contemporary Singapore, they trace Simmel’s transgression of disciplinary boundaries in culture and modernity. The collected essays also explore the transformed presence of his scholarship in the works of more well-known artists, writers, and intellectuals between the second half of the nineteenth century and today. ","""This is a most exciting collection of explorations into a whole range of fields inspired and guided by the work of Georg Simmel. In every instance, these adventures by an international ensemble of young scholars cut across intellectual boundaries to produce new and challenging connections . With their focus upon issues in gender, urban existence, individuality, modern art and philosophy they not only capture the continued relevance of Simmel’s works for cultural formations but also break new ground in their substantive fields. This is a welcome and stimulating contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship."" David Frisby Professor in Sociology London School of Economics ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-03-01,Gregory Minissale,Images of Thought: Visuality in Islamic India 1550-1750,Paperback,978-1-4438-0341-0,14.99,"With many illustrations and diagrams, Images of Thought provides easy to follow ways in which to read Indian, Persian and European paintings in terms of composition, proportion, colour symbolism and references to myth. Yet it also provides the intellectual contexts of Islamic cultures which inform our perceptions of how this visual language works. The author uses salient aspects of critical theory, anthropology and theology to sensitise viewers to the diversity and difference of cultural readings but never loses sight of the primacy of the visual and formal characteristics, gestures, geometrical structures and their cooperation with myths and theologemes. The book provides access to one of the world’s major visual traditions whose characteristics continue to inform and elucidate Indian and Islamic contemporary thought today. Images of Thought is a major, scholarly and provocative contribution not only to our understanding of cultural individuality but it offers important examples of how to engage in transcultural understanding and ways of seeing. ","“Images of Thought, centrally focused on Islamic art, is an integrated study of visuality in the art of India, Persia and Europe [...] Minissale's systematic interpretation of the visual language and subject matter of a Mughal miniature adds to our knowledge. His methodical description of the constituents of composition explained by the demarcated lines delineated on the figures reflects his remarkable understanding of the visual arts. Minissale has endeavoured to read the whole aesthetic experience of Persian and Mughal painting […] In explaining the visual language of the Mughal miniatures accommodating European signs and symbols Minissale goes further than the analyses of Richard Ettinghausen, Robert Skelton and Ebba Koch.” —Som Prakash Verma, Journal of Islamic Studies, May 2008; Vol. 19, No. 2 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-03-01,"Peter H. Hare, Michel Weber, J.K. Swindler, Oana-Maria Pastae and Cerasel Cuteanu",International Perspectives on Pragmatism,Hardback,978-1-4438-0194-2,39.99,"International Perspectives on Pragmatism combines, in a very appealing manner, a pragmatist approach of democracy with practical politics and history of ideas. The result is a meditation on contemporary society, while in the background there is a continuous debate on the concept of democracy, as defining mark of Western culture. Both its critics and its supporters talk about a decay of democracy, which would not justify an idealist perspective anymore. Arguments for this transpire from both the practical politics section of the volume, as well as from the second part that focuses more on the theoretical side of the discussion on democracy. On a more practical direction, there are contributors maintaining the idea that democracy is corrupt (and examples from today’s world are offered), while the theoretical perspective brings up the Rortian view, manifested through the well-known debate between the foundationalist and the anti-foundationalist perspectives. There’s also a very interesting debate on community and art, from a pragmatist point of view, which offers the volume a special serenity. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-03-01,Barry L. Padgett,Professional Morality and Guilty Bystanding: Merton’s Conjectures and the Value of Work,Hardback,978-1-4438-0245-1,34.99,"Work as center of life has such an important role in our lives; it bears a standard by which we measure our success. It is a major component of self-actualization and well-being. Professional life offers the hope of rewarding work, not just financially but work that is fulfilling. However, professions are also riddled with complexities and ethical conflicts that obstruct the goal of meaningful work. Our jobs are fraught with moral ambiguities and dilemmas; these become sources of frustration and alienation. What is needed is a transformation, a renewal of our professional lives and the institutional contexts in which we operate, to humanize the alienating aspects of work and professions. Thomas Merton (1915-1968), though a cloistered monk, wrote extensively on spiritual and social issues. He has been called ""a spiritual master"" for contemporary times. He possessed an uncanny sense of self-awareness and moral imagination. His life and writings have inspired countless persons on life’s spiritual journey. Yet, while people have looked to Merton for guidance on spiritual issues, the implications of his thought for several other areas of life are open to exploration. This book focuses on the significance of his reflections in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, which offer one the confidence to embark on a journey that seeks to transcend the complexities of professional life, and courage to transform the negative features of workplaces and organizations through reasoned moral action, moral imagination, and leadership. ","""With scholarship, style, and intriguing insight Barry Padgett makes the important point that ethics is a verb, not just a naming noun. Using Thomas Merton as his guide, Padgett argues that theory and contemplation are necessary but not sufficient. Ethics requires us to live out our values and beliefs both in our private and, most especially, in our public lives."" - Al Gini, Editor, Business Ethics Quarterly ""Dr. Padgett approaches Thomas Merton's classic book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, in a new and highly relevant fashion. Padgett takes Merton's prophetic, frequently acerbic insights into the modern world, and teases out their application to the world of work ethics. This book challenges readers of Thomas Merton to carry his message from their heads to their daily work places."" - Paul Pearson, director of the Thomas Merton Center, Bellarmine University. ""This book is an extended reflection on the relationship between Merton's thinking, especially as found in 'Conjectures', and the moral dilemmas of contemporary professional life. As such it is an important book, a significant, welcome and almost overdue development in Merton studies."" Canon Melvyn Matthews, Chancellor Emeritus of Wells Cathedral in Merton Journal, Vol 16, No.2, 2009 ""Padgett's book brings Merton's writings into timely discussions of ethics currently monopolizing media headlines, namely a global economic crisis precipitated by poor ethical judgement in the business sector and a national debate in the United States concerning health care. Padgett skillfully demonstrates how Merton's work continues to be challenging in a contemporary context."" Mark C. Meade, Thomas Merton Centre, Bellarmine University, Cistercian Studies Quarterly, Vo. 45.3, 2010 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-03-01,Neil Spurway,"Theology, Evolution and the Mind",Hardback,978-1-4438-0197-3,39.99,"In pre-scientific thought mind itself, and its religious perceptions particularly, were considered gifts from God, injected into a previously created world of matter. By contrast, all the contributors to this book accept an evolutionary account of life, mind and its religious dispositions. However they hold more divergent views on the relation of mind to body and brain, on the validity of those religious dispositions, and on how far even Christ, and his predicted Second Coming, may be seen as aspectc of the evolutionary process. The seventeen contributions are rewritten and extended versions of papers first delivered at the annual conference of the UK’s Science and Religion Forum, held at Canterbury Christ Church College in Sept 2007. Though most speakers were British, representatives from The Netherlands, Jordan, Zimbabwe and USA also contributed. Invited individual chapters consider the general pattern of evolutionary thought, arguing that it can make a major contribution to the maturation of theology; archeological evidence for the emergence of religion, and the proposal that it was an inevitable phase in human evolution; the contribution of religious concepts to the development of our species, and the question whether that provides any ground for accepting them as true; the unresolved debate whether mind is a separate entity from brain, or a consequence of its activity; and the melding of paleo-anthropology with theology to provide an integrated account of humanity and its culmination in Christ. Each of these papers is the subject of an individual expert response, and they are all drawn together in an overview essay which concludes the first part of the book. The second, shorter part contains a selection from the papers contributed by registrants for the meeting. Their topics are whether mathematics consists of truths discovered, or thought-forms developed, by human minds; ecological awareness as an evolutionary development; the neurobiology of freewill and sin; an evolutionary perspective on holistic medicine; and the impressive fruitfulness of juxtaposing neurophysiological and biblical concepts of the human body-mind. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-04-01,Elżbieta Chrzanowska-Kluczewska and Grzegorz Szpila,In Search of (Non)Sense,Hardback,978-1-4438-0345-8,44.99," […] it would seem natural to assume that the disciplines of literary studies and linguistics should by rights converge regularly to exchange views as each pursues its own goals. Is such a convergence possible on the question of sense and nonsense? James W. Underhill (this volume) The contributors to the present volume have focused their attention on two sets of problems that are leitmotifs in all the articles gathered. Firstly, should literary semantics – the linguistic study of texts/discourses marked with the feature of ‘literariness’ and ‘poeticalness’ – strive after an interpretation of all such texts at all costs? Are all literary texts interpretable? How do we cope with such troublesome linguistic phenomena as anomaly, deviance, and absurdity? Aren’t we, by any chance, fascinated by nonsense? Do we try to make it at least partly meaningful? Is interpretability our default value? The introductory article by the renowned scholar Margaret H. Freeman is an important voice, indeed a manifesto of sorts of literary semanticists in this respect. Secondly, while trying to answer all these questions, well aware of the fact that literary semantics is a fuzzy branch of linguistic studies, we have attempted at exploring its borderline zone to see to what extent we have to draw from various theoretical sources. Literary semanticists have often proved that they are capable of arguing contrastively in the atmosphere of openness to such neighbouring fields as: discourse analysis, literary pragmatics and reader-response theories, narratology, literary semiotics and hermeneutics, translation studies and – very importantly – the philosophy of language. The authors contributing to this book, an international company of regularly cooperating linguists and literary scholars, strike a nice balance between the cognitive and the more traditionally or philosophically-oriented frameworks of study, being a vivid proof that cognitive and other “denominations” are perfectly capable of fruitful coexistence. The volume ends with a short presentation by Radosław Nowakowski, already known to academic and artistic audiences in Europe as a creator and propagator of liberature – the art of unusual bookmaking, the art of the book liberated from our traditional preconceptions. We hope that our volume will be of interest to academics and students of literary theory and linguistics alike, especially those involved in literary semantics, stylistics and poetics. Naturally, the book is also addressed to members and sympathizers of IALS (International Association of Literary Semantics) and the readers of Journal of Literary Semantics, scattered across the world. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-04-01,Peter Baofu,The Future of Post-Human Creative Thinking,Hardback,978-1-4438-0488-2,44.99,"What exactly makes creative thinking so magical that, somehow, “everyone can be creative” and, by implication, creativity is a good thing to have—to the point that this popular view is fast becoming a fashionable nonsense in this day and age of ours? To put things in a historical perspective—this popular view contrasts sharply with the opposing view in the older days (e.g., during the Enlightenment and Romantic eras), when people used to think that creativity was primarily for the selected few with extraordinary abilities. Contrary to the respective conventional wisdom in each of the two opposing eras, neither of the two views is valid. Ours is no more so than theirs. This is not to imply, of course, that there are only a few instances of creativity in human history, or, in reverse, that creativity can be equally taught to everyone—and, for that matter, that there is absolutely nothing good about creativity. Obviously, extreme views like this are far from the truth. The point in this book, however, is to show an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of creative thinking, which goes beyond both convergent and divergent thinking, while learning from them. The current fashionable nonsense on creative thinking has tended to minimize its hidden downsides and exaggerate its overstated promises, as part of a new ideology in this age of ours. In addition, there is nothing intrinsically good (or bad) about “creative thinking”—just as there is nothing essentially good (or evil) about “God,” “the King,” “Motherland,” or the like, by analogy. They have all been used and misused in accordance to the interests and powers that be over the ages. If true, this seminal view will fundamentally change the way that we think about the nature of imagination and intuition, with its enormous implications for the future of invention and innovation, in a small sense, and what I originally called its “post-human” fate, in a large one. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-04-01,Palmira Fontes da Costa,The Singular and the Making of Knowledge at the Royal Society of London in the Eighteenth Century,Hardback,978-1-4438-0357-1,39.99,"The central subject of this book is the status of singular experiences in the making of natural knowledge at the Royal Society of London in the eighteenth century. It makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the importance of the reporting and display of extraordinary phenomena at the Royal Society in this period, and shows that the success of these practices was largely based on their multiple roles within the Society, where singular experiences not only promoted natural historical and medical knowledge but also played a social and epistemological role. However, singular experiences were problematic in terms of authentication and the book reveals how eighteenth-century literary satires made the Royal Society an easy and favoured target for their interest in them. The book demonstrates the variety and intricacy of elements involved in the making and circulation of natural knowledge in the period. It provides an interdisciplinary and innovative approach to the place of the singular in one of the oldest and most import scientific institutions in the world. ","‘…comprehensively researched book which constitutes a useful addition to the still scant literature on the Royal Society in the Eighteenth Century…written with authority, and with an eye to the major debates about the character of the Royal Society. At last the life of that institution in the Eighteenth Century is starting to emerge from the shadows to which it has long be consigned.' John Gascoigne- University of New South Wales, The Journal of BJHS, Vol. 43/1- March 2010 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-04-01,Timothy J. Madigan,"W. K. Clifford and ""The Ethics of Belief""",Hardback,9781847185037,29.99,"W. K. Clifford (1845-1879) was a noted mathematician and popularizer of science in the Victorian era. Although he made major contributions in the field of geometry, he is perhaps best known for a short essay he wrote in 1876, entitled ""The Ethics of Belief"", in which he argued that ""It is wrong always, everywhere, and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."" Delivered initially as an address to the august Metaphysical Society (whose members included such luminaries as Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Gladstone, T. H. Huxley, and assorted scientists, clerics and philosophers of differing metaphysical views, ""The Ethics of Belief"" became a rallying cry for freethinkers and a bone of contention for religious apologists. It continues to be discussed today as an exemplar of what is called 'evidentialism', a key point in current philosophy of religion debates over justification of knowledge claims. In this book, Timothy J. Madigan examines the continuing relevance of ""The Ethics of Belief"" to epistemological and ethical concerns. He places the essay within the historical context, especially the so-called 'Victorian Crisis of Faith' of which Clifford was a key player. Clifford's own life and interests are dealt with as well, along with the responses to his essay by his contemporaries, the most famous of which was William James's ""The Will to Believe."" Madigan provides an overview of modern-day critics of Cliffordian evidentialism, as well as examining thinkers who were positively influenced by him, including Bertrand Russell, who was perhaps Clifford's most influential successor as an advocate of intellectual honesty. The book ends with a defense of ""The Ethics of Belief"" from a virtue-theory approach, and argues that Clifford utilizes an ""as-if"" methodology to encourage intellectual inquiry and communal truth-seeking.' The Ethics of Belief' continues to provoke and stimulate controversy, which was perhaps Clifford's own fondest hope, although he had no right to believe it would do so. ","“This work is extremely well-written, lucid and well-organized. Madigan gets the reader into the subject with an account of Clifford’s life and, equally important, a vivid description of the intellectual climate of the time. Through this, and other means, he conveys the importance of the subject and of Clifford’s contribution. The last two chapters illustrate, convincingly, that the subject is still important and not just of historical interest. The views of contemporary philosophers are discussed and perceptively dealt with.” —Richard Taylor, former Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester and author of Good and Evil; Restoring Pride: The Lost Virtue of our Age; and Metaphysics, among many other works. “Madigan’s study of Clifford’s best-known work is unusually well-written, is cogently argued, and raises important issues in a thought-provoking way. He shows a discerning appreciation of scholars who do not agree with him. In short, this is a treat to read and ponder.” —Rollo Handy, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo ""...in this excellent study Dr Tim Madigan shows why we should take notice of this remarkable man and his 'secular sermon, delivered to exhort individuals to live up to their highest epistemic abilities"" Jon Wainwright, Open University in Philosophy Now, Feb 2010. ""The much-anthologized essay of W. K. Clifford, ""The Ethics of Belief"" is often read in ignorance of its background, and this study of Madigan is useful for correcting this. It is a useful study...giving a first summary of the issues and the debates associated with it."" Patrick Giddy, University of Kwazulu-Natal in Metapsychology Online Reviews, March 2011 Volume 15 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-05-01,William S. Haney II,Globalization and the Posthuman,Hardback,978-1-4438-0541-4,34.99,"Globalization and the Posthuman argues that by globalizing posthumanism through biotechnology, particularly through the invasive interface of humans and machines, we may well interfere with and even undermine the innate quality of human psycho-physiology and the experience of the internal observer, the non-socially constructed self or pure consciousness. Furthermore, many features of globalization in-and-of itself—such as the fall of public man, the exterritorialization of capital, the loss of an impersonal public world to localized communities based on emotively shared interests—combined with the posthuman expansion of biotechnology will diminish our natural capacity to experience the self as knower and lead to an increase in global crime, sickness, accident rates and overall lack of harmony. The experience of the self comprises the unsayable secret of modern and postmodern literature and art, a secret that may soon become inaccessible if the world continues down the road of globalized infomania. The analysis of the consequences of globalization and the posthuman in this book is unique in that it will be the first to examine the interrelation between globalization, posthumanism and pure consciousness. Posthumanists define consciousness in a way that promotes the globalization of biotechnology without regard for its potential risks. This book explores the implications of the globalization of the posthuman model of consciousness. On the one hand, cognitive scientists tend to equate consciousness with subjectivity, which they associate with the thinking mind as an extension of the body, nature and culture; Eastern philosophy, on the other hand, distinguishes mind from consciousness, with mind defined as the content of consciousness. Bionic technology will have the effect of raising human metabolism and preventing the mind from settling down to the state of least excitation of consciousness. This book suggests that while conscious content is an indispensable aspect of both the human and posthuman condition, the thoughts, memories, feelings and perceptions of this content do not encompass a vital aspect of human nature attested to not only by the first-person experience of many millions of people around the world, but also by the records of both classical and modern contemplative traditions. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-05-01,Justin Holt,"Karl Marx’s Philosophy of Nature, Action and Society: A New Analysis",Hardback,978-1-4438-0551-3,34.99,"This work analyses Marx's philosophy of nature and shows how it is the basis for his practical philosophy. Previous analysis of Marx's philosophy of nature has considered humans as only natural beings and social beings. But, Marx analyzed humans' relationship to the natural world and to themselves as natural, social, and material. This material feature of human action can server as a basis for social critique and as the foundation for a practical analysis. The first chapter of this book analyzes Marx's philosophy of nature from his early to late works and argues that humans are natural begins that use nature to develop new capacities. This consideration is central in Marx's critiques of Hegel and Feuerbach. The second chapter discusses Marx's material critique of social forms and discusses why the distinction between material action and social action is a key component of Marx critique of capitalism. This chapter also discusses industrial history, ideology, wages, justice, and valorization. The third and final chapter builds on Marx's materialist analysis to develop a standard of practical action that takes human's material activity as its basis. This chapter also discusses classical historical materialist claims, liberal ethical theories, and a practical philosophic consideration of socialism. ","""I think justin has produced a powerful and compelling new interpretation of Marx's materialism that is closely related to political action. I recommend the book most warmly and without reservation."" - Simon Critchley, Professor and Chair of Philosophy, New School for Social Research, New York City ""In his book, Justin Holt considers the understanding of nature in Marx and establishes a materialist standard for practical action as a universal realization of human project. Holt managed to produce a truly original interpretation of Marx's account of nature, which is a timely enterprise at the moment where we are overusing our natural resources and face a possibility of a global environmental catastrophe."" - Dmitri Nikulin, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, New School for Social Research, New York ""...a powerful and thought provoking philosophical defense of communism as a viable and necessary alternative, vouching for far greater, but not unlimited, enhancement of the collective and the individual"". Ishay Landa, Israeli Open University in Marx and Philosophy Review of Books, 24 March 2010 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-05-01,"Steve Brie, Jenny Daggers and David Torevell",Sacred Space: Interdisciplinary Perspectives within Contemporary Contexts,Hardback,978-1-4438-0517-9,39.99,"The identification and positioning of sacred space within contemporary contexts has, to date, received scant attention. In reflecting upon a broad spectrum of conceptions of what constitutes sacred space, this collection of interdisciplinary essays presents a new perspective on an area that is developing into an important theological and philosophical concept. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-06-01,"Carolyn Birdsall, Maria Boletsi, Itay Sapir and Pieter Verstraete",Inside Knowledge: (Un)doing Ways of Knowing in the Humanities,Hardback,978-1-4438-0577-3,44.99,"Inside Knowledge: (Un)doing Ways of Knowing in the Humanities is a collection of original essays proposing a fresh examination of epistemological questions relevant to scholars in any discipline of the humanities. Is objective knowledge still a viable ideal? Can art produce or express knowledge of any kind? Is the body a promising medium for a knowledge less abstract or logocentric than the kind Western culture has favoured so far? How are epistemological regimes maintained with the use of established linguistic tropes? Is knowledge to be resisted or employed as a tool of resistance? Distinguished as well as young, emerging scholars from disciplines such as philosophy, comparative literature, musicology and art theory discuss concrete case studies in which these questions arise. The essays share a commitment to interdisciplinary approaches and the close analysis of cultural objects, and refuse to take for granted the conventional methodologies that often guide research projects in their respective fields. The Inside Knowledge volume stages encounters between different ways of knowing, which contribute to an interdiciplinary understanding of the concept of knowledge and of epistemological questions in the humanities. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-06-01,Ramkrishna Mukherjee,The Measure of Time in the Appraisal of Social Reality,Hardback,978-1-4438-0576-6,34.99,"Coming on the eve of the Indian elections of 2009, The Measure of Time in the Appraisal of Social Reality is a timely and an explosive expose of what went wrong in Indian developmental planning. Focussing on the land, caste and gender issues, and advocating a place-time-people based research agenda, the Measure of Time is a scathing critique of how the elite nexus between politics and academic neo colonialism has subverted the course of genuine development in India. This is a must read for those who wish to understand contemporary India. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-07-01,W. Creighton Peden,"Evolutionary Theist: An Intellectual Biography of Minot Judson Savage, 1841-1918",Hardback,978-1-4438-0984-9,39.99,"This book concludes fifty years of research on the empirical tradition in American liberal religious thought. At the University of Chicago, I wrestled with the issue of how to make pre-scientific religion intelligible in our scientific world. Being a student of B. E. Meland and attracted by H. N. Wieman’s philosophy of creative interchange, I initially worked on the key thinkers in the Chicago School from Shailer Mathews to B. E. Meland. This resulted in books on Wieman, A. N. Whitehead (with C. Hartshorne), A. E. Haydon, and The Chicago School: Voices of Liberal Religious Thought (1987). While teaching at the U. of Glasgow in 1982, I began a research project on the empirical tradition in nineteenth century American liberal religious thought. Chauncy Wright led me to F. E. Abbot and the Free Religious Association. The past twenty five years has focused on the empirical tradition in this association, with writings on the thought of F. E. Abbot, W. J. Potter, D. A. Wasson. This work on Minot J. Savage concludes my research on the Free Religious Association. Nearing completion is a work tracing the empirical tradition through the four thinkers in the FRA and eight in the Chicago School. ","“This book provides detailed information about Savage’s life and work, accompanied by Peden’s critical evaluation of Savage’s main ideas. Savage was a highly influential preacher, lecturer, and writer who sought, principally under the influence of Herbert Spencer, to incorporate a version of Darwinian evolutionary thought into his theological outlook. His thinking also reflects the impact of the Higher Criticism of the Bible that came to the fore in his lifetime. Savage endorsed the idea of universal salvation for all humans and contended that salvation results from or is identical with their ongoing perfection of character, a process that continues into the afterlife. Finally, he was fascinated by spiritualism and the spiritualist research of his time and argued that all reality was essentially spirit rather than matter. In general, Savage sought to bring religious ideas under the critical eye of reason and the developing science of his day. His life and thought give important insight into how liberal religious thinkers wrestled with challenging and often profoundly threatening cultural developments in the second part of the nineteenth century.” —Donald A. Crosby, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Colorado State University “Peden is probably America’s most productive scholar of 19th century liberal religious thought. His study of Minot Judson Savage—whose struggle for a “free” religion that was compatible with science, was exploring spiritualism, was indebted to the Christian heritage, and was politically workable within the Unitarian/Universalist organization—provides a monumental study of the human struggle for spiritual growth with intellectual integrity.” —J. Edward Barrett, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Reigion, Muskingum College, Ohio ""This expanded version of a long-regarded classic introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy by his most reliable interpreters is most welcome. With the inclusion of a brief biography and a carefully chosen bibliography, it will prove most useful to students and general readers interested in knowing more of Whitehead’s work, now influential in so many branches of learning, not least theology. —D.W.D. Shaw, emeritus Professor of Divinity, University of St Andrews, Scotland ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-07-01,Raymond Aaron Younis,On the Ethical Life,Hardback,978-1-4438-0981-8,34.99,"The question of the ethical life is arguably one of the most compelling, and urgent, questions of our time. As Peter Singer, among others, has pointed out, almost 10 million children die each year due to poverty, some of whom would not die if the amount of aid that we now offer increases significantly. As Singer has also pointed out, the exploitation of human beings and other animals is a major ethical and practical concern. There can be little reasonable doubt that pain and suffering abound, in the world today, due to many causes such as poverty, disease, environmental degradation and destruction and anthropocentrism among others, just as there can be little reasonable doubt that some of the pain and suffering is preventable. So, what does it mean to live ethically today? Does it mean taking the point of view of the universe, as Sidgwick put it, memorably, rather than a narrow anthropocentric or speciesist view? Does it mean living in accordance with duties or obligations, or in light of recognised virtues, or with the minimisation of pain and suffering primarily in mind? Does it entail a consideration of the interests of other species and a rejection of the principle of the sanctity of human life? Does it mean not eating animals when other healthy alternatives are available, especially when those animals have been treated in ways that are inconsistent with their interests, whatever they may be? Does it mean taking active steps to reduce poverty on our part on a day to day basis? Is ethics exhausted in some sense today? And if we could reach some consensus on these questions, what difference would the ethical life make? Some argue that speciesism and the exploitation of human beings and other animals might diminish; that pain and suffering, especially gratuitous pain and suffering, would decrease, or at the very least, not increase; or that we will become more aware of the limitations of things such as “the traditional ethic of the sanctity of life”, as Singer calls it. Some argue that the ethical life is closely related to a life of relationships, reflection and deliberation, all of which deepen our understanding and enrich us personally. Others argue that the ethical life is closely related to our search for a meaningful life – that the ethical life can help us to find meaning in a world in which “meaning”, defined broadly, can seem elusive, enigmatic or unsubstantial. These and related issues and questions are explored in this collection, which illustrates the relevance, vitality and dynamism of ethics today. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-08-01,"Christopher Garbowski, Jan Hudzik and Jan Kłos",Charles Taylor’s Vision of Modernity: Reconstructions and Interpretations,Hardback,978-1-4438-1128-6,39.99,"Charles Taylor is currently one the most renowned and influential contemporary philosophers. He is also widely quoted and discussed both in the social sciences and humanities. Taylor earns this attention through his remarkable capacity for presenting his conceptions in the broadest possible intellectual and cultural context. His philosophical intuition is fundamentally antinaturalistic, and tends toward developing broad syntheses without a trace of systematizing thinking, or any anarchic postmodernist methodology. His thought unites the past with the present, while culture is treated as a broad mosaic of discourses. Religion, art, science, philosophy, politics and ethics are all fields through which the Canadian philosopher deftly moves about in his search for their hidden structures and deepest sense. Taylor’s philosophical output is prodigious. Recently, as his monumental study A Secular Age (2007) indicates, he has been concentrating much of his attention on the problem of secularization.. The selection of contributions in the current volume proffer a penetrating cross section of Taylor’s thought. They are derived from a conference held in October 2008 in Lublin, Poland Although some of the articles are focused on a reconstruction of the philosopher’s concepts, most either engage in a polemic with elements of his thought or find inspiration in it for their own reflections. The contributions are grouped in four parts: 1) philosophy and the modern self; 2) the problem of secularization; 3) between liberalism and communitarianism; and 4) language, literature, and culture. ","""It needed the enthusiastic work of Polish scholars to put together an outstanding book on Charles Taylor""s vision of modernity. The contibutors of this important publication have addressed the work of Taylor from four perspectives, illuminating convincingly the message of his theory as a whole.” - Agnes Heller, Hannah Arendt Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City. “This volume contains a most skillfully composed selection of profound and insightful studies of Charles Taylor's works, written by the leading scholars of Poland - a country in which Taylor's philosophy reverberated particularly widely, engaging in an intellectually fertile interaction with the native Polish philosophical tradition, historical experience and present-day preoccupations. Offering a heretofore unexplored angle from which to perceive and interpret Taylor's ideas, this volume is bound already for that reason to enrich the ongoing world-wide philosophical concerns and debates in broadly understood humanities.” - Zygmunt Bauman, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Leeds. ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-08-01,Dana Xavier Kerola,Inside Out: Looking for Ourselves in Time and Space,Hardback,978-1-4438-1101-9,34.99,"This work is a new look at the age-old philosophical question of the “mind-body” duality. The author adeptly demonstrates that there is not really any conflict in the two seemingly opposing views. When it is realized that the universe is governed purely by physical laws, the supposed dichotomy dissolves. Inspired by his long-running exploration of the panorama of pop music, the author blends in references to song lyrics as he explains the ways in which the lives of human beings are inextricably tied to the larger, precedent world of planets, stars, and galaxies. His personal reflections on reality include topics ranging from the “epistemology” of satellite remote sensing, to fundamental discussions of anthropology, astronomy, and atmospheric science. He also offers thoughtful commentary on our quest to continue present and future space exploration as he forecasts what will become of the universe and us in the very distant future. Inside Out: Looking for Ourselves in Time and Space will appeal to both the general reader and research scientists alike. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-08-01,Herbert De Vriese and Gary Gabor ,Rethinking Secularization: Philosophy and the Prophecy of a Secular Age,Hardback,978-1-4438-1008-1,49.99,"Rethinking Secularization: Philosophy and the Prophecy of a Secular Age provides a philosophical appraisal of secularization in light of the recent re-emergence of religion in the public sphere. It explores the adequacy of classical theories of secularization, and, rooted in historical and conceptual analysis, what might be offered in their place today. Responding to the once dominant theories of a global, world-historical emancipation from an inherited religious past to a modern secular age, the volume also considers the extent to which philosophy itself has inspired and nourished such prophecies. As a result, a more sophisticated view of secularization emerges, both more interesting and complex than the simple linear process it is often thought to be. From the conceptual origins of secularity in the writings of Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to the contemporary secularization theories of Hans Blumenberg, Marcel Gauchet, and Charles Taylor, Rethinking Secularization considers philosophy’s own relationship to the concept of secularization. It reflects the trend in contemporary philosophy to rethink the relation between religion and modernity, and includes systematic contributions to the debate. The book would appeal to a wide range of readers in philosophy, sociology, religious studies, and intellectual history. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-08-01,J. Jeremy Wisnewski,"Review Journal of Political Philosophy Volume 7, Issue Number 1",Paperback,978-1-4438-1109-5,19.99,"The Review Journal of Political Philosophy publishes high-quality work in moral and political philosophy, broadly-construed. The Journal prides itself on its eclecticism, not limiting itself to any particular tradition, school of thought, or historical period. We publish articles, reviews, and discussion pieces from leading and new scholars from analytic and continental perspectives, along with articles that bridge the gap between these traditions. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-08-01,A. Javier Treviño,Talcott Parsons on Law and the Legal System,Paperback,978-1-4438-1130-9,29.99,"One of the great ironies in contemporary sociology of law is that despite Talcott Parsons’s enormously influential role as “the midwife of modern sociology,” coupled with his three decades of focused and sustained analysis of the legal system’s location in a total and complex society, it is nothing short of appalling that his particular social systems approach to law has been largely neglected. Indeed, although Parsons made only cursory mention of law in some of his best-known works, he extensively discussed the role of the legal system in no less than five important papers and two somewhat lengthy book reviews. What is more, in the two slim paperbacks where Parsons applies his cybernetic systems theory in explaining the progression from premodern to modern societies, he considers law to be an essential element in the analysis of just about every society under consideration: ancient Egypt and the Mesopotamian empires; China, India, and the Islamic empires; the Roman empire; Israel and Greece; medieval Western Christendom; the United States. This volume, the first of its kind, is the most complete articulation of Parsons’s treatment of the U.S. legal system’s nature and function during the late-twentieth century. In addition to a lengthy Introduction by the editor, the book consists of 26 readings, taken from the full range of Parsons’s books and papers, which, in toto, render a detailed analytical roadmap that can today guide much of our sociological thinking concerning such contemporary social issues related to law as citizenship, trust, and governmentality. More than this, Parsons’s writings on the courts and the legal profession—both of which he believed to constitute the core of an integrative U.S. citizenry—can inform policy-makers’ decisions concerning such controversial issues as immigration, civil rights, and legal ethics. ","“In his Theory of Communicative Action, Jürgen Habermas asserted that ‘no theory of society can be taken seriously today if it does not at least situate itself with respect to Parsons.’ The historical error of simply ignoring Parsons’s work is in clear need of correction. We must therefore be grateful to A. Javier Treviño for his contribution to this corrective by providing us with a collection of Parsons’s key works and thoughts on the sociology of law. In doing so he opens up the potential of a sophisticated sociology for understanding the legal system of an increasingly complex society.” —Helmut Staubmann, University of Innsbruck “Treviño’s Talcott Parsons on Law and the Legal System gives an ideal, thought-provoking, and fascinating focus in exploring trans-sectional social phenomena. In examining law’s relationship to the societal community, polity, economy and culture, this is not only an epoch-making book on Parsons’s sociology of law, it also makes a breakthrough contribution to a comprehensive understanding of contemporary society.” —Kiyomitsu Yui, Kobe University “A. Javier Treviño has done a great service to the discipline in editing together Parsons’s most interesting analyses of the law and providing the reader with a systematic, yet highly readable, introduction to his views on the subject. Both sociologists and legal scholars will discover much to think about in this book.” —Giuseppe Sciortino, University of Trento ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-08-01,Wayne Cristaudo and Frances Huessy,The Cross and the Star: The Post-Nietzschean Christian and Jewish Thought of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Franz Rosenzweig,Hardback,978-1-4438-1011-1,44.99,"Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, a Christian convert and a social philosophy scholar, had an intense conversation with the Jewish thinker Franz Rosenzweig in 1913. This “Leipzig Conversation” shattered Rosenzweig’s understanding of the meaning of religion, but it also propelled him to embrace his innate Jewish faith. Three years later, they engaged in a correspondence that has emerged as an historic, stunning dialogue on Jewish-Christian thinking. Rosenzweig went on to write The Star of Redemption, a classic work of modern Jewish philosophical theology and to become one of the most important and influential figures of twentieth-century German Jewry. Rosenstock-Huessy took a different path—writing his Sociology, which pointed the social sciences in a new direction based on speech-thinking, and an enormous, rich body of work covering grammar and society, revolutions, Church history, and industrial law; teaching generations of European and American university students; and putting his faith into action. This is the first major collection of essays on these two close friends’ “new thinking.” Their dialogue mirrored Nietzsche’s anti-transcendent reading of Judaism and Christianity, as well as his attack on idealism. But their dialogue also resurrected the redemptive cores of these faiths as sources for the rejuvenation of human society. This book brings to publication three essays by Rosenstock-Huessy on Nietzsche, and a translation of a chapter from his Sociology, clarifying the post-Nietzschean approach of the “new thinking.” The Cross and the Star, a 50-year span of significant scholarship, vivifies the reasons for Rosenzweig’s and Rosenstock-Huessy’s influence on faith and society, and why their respective thought speaks directly and enduringly to the global human challenges of our time. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-09-01,Lopamudra Basu and Cynthia Leenerts,Passage to Manhattan: Critical Essays on Meena Alexander,Hardback,978-1-4438-1243-6,39.99,"Passage to Manhattan: Critical Essays on Meena Alexander is a unique compendium of scholarship on South Asian American writer Meena Alexander, who is recognized as one of the most influential and innovative contemporary South Asian American poets. Her poetry, memoirs, and fiction occupy a unique locus at the intersection of postcolonial and US multicultural studies. This anthology examines the importance of her contribution to both fields. It is the first sustained analysis of the entire Alexander oeuvre, employing a diverse array of critical methodologies. Drawing on feminist, Marxist, cultural studies, trauma studies, contemporary poetics, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis, the collection features fifteen chapters and an Afterword, by well-established scholars of postcolonial and Asian American literature like Roshni Rustomji, May Joseph, Anindyo Roy, and Amritjit Singh, as well as by emerging scholars like Ronaldo Wilson, Parvinder Mehta, and Kazim Ali. The contributors offer insights on nearly all of Alexander’s major works, and the volume achieves a balance between Alexander’s diverse genres, covering the spectrum from early works like Nampally Road to her forthcoming book The Poetics of Dislocation. The essays engage with a variety of debates in postcolonial, feminist, and US multicultural studies, as well as providing many nuanced and detailed readings of Alexander’s mutli-layered texts. ","“In broad terms, the book Passage to Manhattan: Critical Essays on Meena Alexander edited by Lopamudra Basu and Cynthia Leenerts is welcome and long overdue. While much has been written about postcolonial theory and theorists, as well as fiction writers, the output in critical scholarship on postcolonial poetry and poets, especially from South Asia, has been distressingly thin. In this respect alone, this is a ‘project of illumination’ and deserves a careful consideration as it focuses on postcolonial South Asian poetry in English, but also straddles women’s and cultural studies, as well as literary theory. Summing up, the value of project lies, first, in that it fills a lacuna in Postcolonial Studies: a definitive examination of the poetry of Meena Alexander, one of the most original and compelling voices in postcolonial south Asian writing in English. Second, the book, with its judicious and carefully balanced mix of interviews, critical essays and commentaries, locates the postcolonial poetry of Alexander as enmeshed in an interconnected network of contact zones, which Mary Louise Pratt sees as invoking the spatial and temporal co-presence of people and cultures previously separated by geographical and historical disjunctures, but whose personal, cultural, and creative trajectories now come together or intersect.” – Gautam Kundu, Professor of English, Georgia Southern University “It is well past time for an anthology of critical writings on the poetry, fiction, and memoirs of Meena Alexander (1951–), and the 15 essays gathered here successfully offer balanced readings from feminist, Marxist, phenomenological, and cultural studies points of view that situate her notably on the ‘fault lines’ between postcolonial, ethnic American, and women’s studies. Following Jahan Ramazani’s suggestion in The Hybrid Muse (2001), Basu and Leenerts seek to broaden the treatment of poetry in postcolonial studies, and with Amritjit Singh and Peter Schmidt (Postcolonial Theory and the United States, 2000) they demonstrate that US ethnic studies pointedly intersect postcolonial work in writers like Alexander. Here is a writer who draws inspiration equally from Gloria Anzaldúa, Rumi, Akka Mahadevi, and Edouard Glissant: an exponent of cultural decolonization, the aesthetics of hybridity, and the task of expanding the notion of genre.” – John C. Hawley, Professor and Chair of English, Santa Clara University “This richly textured collection fully honors Meena Alexander, a writer of breath-taking complexity – poet, novelist, memoirist, essayist. Her aesthetic draws inspiration from multiple sources including South Asian poets and philosophers, English Romanticists, feminists, postcolonial and anti-racist theorists; her language foregrounds the female body as the landscape of struggle and memory. The contributors illuminate superbly the craft and ethics of Alexander’s poetic, fluid, and genre-shifting polyvocal articulations, calling attention to their transformative value in a time of violence. Willingly, we invest in the histories and conflicts of the diverse places and peoples that populate Alexander’s vast consciousness, which moves relentlessly across India, North Africa, England, and the United States.” – Rajini Srikanth, Associate Professor of English, University of Massachusetts, Boston “This excellent collection of essays and interviews analyzes the transnational feminist poetry, memoirs, fiction and philosophy of the South Asian American writer Meena Alexander. A single volume brings together the varied production of a cosmopolitan ‘woman cracked by multiple migrations,’ a writer whose oeuvre is situated at the intersection of postcolonial, ethnic American, and women’s studies. The contributors effectively chart the intellectual biography of an important poet philosopher activist who has constructed her writings as a home where all the different countries and languages that make up who she is are brought together and lived simultaneously and harmoniously.” – Miriam Cooke, Professor of Arab Cultures, Duke University; Author of Dissident Syria: Making Oppositional Arts Official ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-09-01,Massimiliano Vignolo,Use Against Scepticism,Hardback,978-1-4438-1236-8,34.99,"What place is left for semantic notions? There are three main positions in response to that question: eliminativism, physicalism and semanticalism. This book argues in favour of a version of semanticalism. That version of semanticalism does not make semantic notions mysterious as if they are added from outside the realm of nature, as is the case with the Cartesian conception of mental properties. Semantic properties are treated as emergent properties reference to which serves to play a normative role in the account of the nature of linguistic expressions. The need for positing semantic properties stems from the fact that the best explanation of the nature of linguistic expressions as guides to reality, to inform and to learn about the states of the world, invokes semantic properties. It consists in endowing linguistic expressions with semantic properties that correlate them to things and states of the world. Semantics, then, should be kept distinct from the theory of meaning. We need the theory of meaning for giving an account of linguistic competence in order to explain speakers’ linguistic behaviour, but we need semantics in order to explain the nature of the objects produced by the behavioural output of linguistic competence. Consider a speaker who reads the sentence “it will be sunny and warm tomorrow” on the weather forecast page of the newspaper. We do not need to model his understanding as if he knew the semantic properties of the expressions occurring in that sentence. Rather, we need to invoke the semantic properties of that sentence, and of its constituents, in order to explain the social practice of uttering and writing it to inform people about weather conditions. This book argues that liberal naturalists are entitled to endorse the same attitude towards semantic properties as W.V.O. Quine’s towards mathematical entities. We ought to accept semantic properties since our best theory of the world makes reference to them. The metaphysical principle of the supervenience of semantic properties over naturalistic properties, though unexplained, is justified to the extent that it too belongs to our best overall theory of the world, which as a whole faces the tribunal of experience. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-10-01,Alfred J. Drake,New Essays on the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory,Hardback,9781847189578,39.99,"New Essays on the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory offers fifteen essays covering a variety of authors and topics related to the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory (Institut für Sozialforschung) that flourished from the 1920s in connection with the University of Frankfurt in Germany and then abroad. The volume offers reflections on the Frankfurt School’s critical dialogue with philosophical predecessors such as Marx and Nietzsche, elucidates key debates between Frankfurt School authors and contemporaries, and addresses the continuing significance of the Frankfurt School in the postmodern age, with reference to major thinkers such as Fredric Jameson, Antonio Negri, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Lacan. Readers will find a lively but respectful debate on the strengths and limitations of Frankfurt notions about technology, “negative dialectics,” the Shoah, and the utopian dimension of political thought, among other concerns. The aim of contributors throughout has been to broaden readers’ understanding of the sophistication and integrity of Frankfurt School thought rather than reducing it to the level of the formulaic or polemical. Music theory, the representation of urban spaces in prose and image, and the theorization of childhood find a place in this appropriately diverse collection, with essays on Lewis Mumford and Siegfried Kracauer broadening its scope. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-10-01,Luke White and Claire Pajaczkowska ,The Sublime Now,Hardback,978-1-4438-1302-0,49.99,"The Sublime has been considered an archaic concept the relevance of which was limited to eighteenth-century discourses on art, literary criticism and aesthetics. But it is becoming obvious that contemporary culture requires of us a response that is at once emotional, critical, powerful and meaningful, and recently the issue of the sublime has found its way back onto the critical agenda. This book asks a series of critical questions about this resurgence: What is the legacy of the discourse of the sublime for us today? In what ways has it acquired an added urgency in our new millennium? To what extent is this concept a useful or dangerous tool for the understanding of contemporary culture and history? How does the Sublime follow the Post Modern? To what uses can and should it be put? Why the Sublime now? The editors have collected writings from many contemporary thinkers who bring the critical concept of the sublime into their discussions of contemporary cultures. Spanning philosophy, religion, ecology, politics, literature, avant-garde art, popular cinema, comic books, humour and digital cultures these essays consider the relevance of the sublime now. The authors make provocative readings of the original writings on the sublime, from Longinus, Burke, Kant and Nietzsche, to Freud, Lyotard, Derrida, Kristeva and others whilst bringing these writings to bear on today’s cultural issues. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-11-01,Ken Gale and Jonathan Wyatt,Between the Two: A Nomadic Inquiry into Collaborative Writing and Subjectivity,Hardback,978-1-4438-1349-5,39.99,"In this unique work, Ken Gale and Jonathan Wyatt bring together three areas of scholarship: collaborative writing as method of inquiry, the philosophical approaches of the French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, and the performativity of both writing and the “self”. The book is a reflexive exploration into the theory and practice of collaborative writing, with their between-the-twos—sequences of exchanged writings using a variety of forms and genres—at the book’s heart. Their collaboration offers an experimental, transgressive and nomadic inquiry into subjectivity. Based upon the authors’ joint doctoral dissertation, the book draws for its theoretical base primarily from the work of Deleuze, from both his philosophical “figures” and the insights that he offers into his collaborations with others. It also tells a story, conveying a sense of a relationship developing over time. This book will interest both academics and postgraduate students in the field of qualitative inquiry, including those involved in narrative inquiry, cultural, communication and performance studies, and autoethnography. ","“Sometimes I read a book and wish I'd written it. Ken and Jonathan’s book is one of them It is highly original, thought provoking, and emotionally compelling. The authors show us through ‘writing spaces’ of interactive writing how Deleuzian ideas can be applied to discover (uncover) intimacy and ‘becoming’. I found myself glued to the pages by the authors' ingenuity, openness, and intelligence. It is not only erudite, it is a really good read.” —Professor Laurel Richardson, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, The Ohio State University, USA “In Between the Two, Ken Gale and Jonathan Wyatt provide us with multiple spaces and traces of what can be, and might be, for embodied academics seeking to engage with experimental and transgressive modes of representation as a way to explore lived experience in all its messy complexity. Beautifully crafted and laced with an emotionally sensitive scholarship, their work is both provocative and evocative, inviting us to weave our own stories into those they offer for consideration. It is an invitation well worth accepting.” —Professor Andrew C. Sparkes PhD, Director: Qualitative Research Unit, School of Sport & Health Sciences, Exeter University “This is a powerful, richly nuanced, evocative work; a stunning and brilliantly innovative pedagogical and theoretical intervention. This new book provides ground zero—the starting place for the next generation of theorists who want to write their way through and across the theoretical, methodological and interpretive implications that result when voice, identity, presence and writing are made problematic. A stunning accomplishment. Their model of collaborative writing and performance autoethnography charts new territories of inquiry. They show the rest of us how to move from the personal to the political, and back again. We are all in their debt.” —Norman K. Denzin, Distinguished Professor of Communications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-11-01,Paul Crittenden,Sartre in Search of an Ethics,Hardback,978-1-4438-1341-9,39.99,"In the postwar years Jean-Paul Sartre set himself the task of writing a book on ethics. His concern was to take up issues raised by his existentialist ontology and to resolve problems in his bleak account of the human situation in Being and Nothingness. “I am searching,” he said, “for an ethics for the present time.” For several years he prepared background notes, but then put the material aside as too abstract and idealistic, leaving it for publication after his death. Years later he returned to ethics, this time in the hope of developing an account related to the Critique of Dialectical Reason. But once again he left the inquiry incomplete. There was yet a third attempt towards the end of his life when Sartre was blind and weak, a poignant witness to his abiding interest in ethics. This took the form of interviews with Benny Lévy, which appeared in a controversial publication just before his death. Sartre in Search of an Ethics is a study of each of these stages in his ethical quest, with a focus on the major themes of his existentialist and dialectical ethics in the context of some of his main philosophical and literary writings. ","In discussions towards the end of his life, Jean-Paul Sartre said that he was searching for an ethics, hoping to find “the moment when ethics will be simply and truly the way in which human beings live in relation to one another.” More than thirty years earlier, in 1948, he had written “I am searching for an ethics for the present time.” Midway between these points, he announced in a lecture in 1964 that “the historical moment has come for Socialism to rediscover its ethical structure, or, rather, to unveil it.” Sartre in Search of an Ethics is a study of each of these stages in Sartre’s ethical quest. Part One focusses on his attempt in the late 1940s to develop an existentialist or ontological ethics that would deal with issues raised by his work Being and Nothingness (1943). The central idea of the Notebooks for an Ethics – drawn from notes written in 1947–48, but not published until after his death in 1980 – is the prospect of a radical ethical conversion that would turn around the original human situation. This is the picture of human consciousness and freedom caught up in bad faith, broken relationships, a futile desire for absolute transcendence, and a history of alienation and oppression. The outcome of conversion would be authentic ethical existence marked by a freedom that acknowledges its limits and recognises the freedom of others in an ethics of generosity and truth. Some of these ideas found a place in his writings at the time especially in Anti-Semite and Jew (1946), What is Literature? (1948), the play The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), and Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952). By 1949, however, Sartre had decided that the book on ethics he had hoped to write was not coming together satisfactorily and he set the project aside. A little over a decade later he began to think again about a work on ethics, this time in the context of his second major philosophical work, the Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960). The Critique is a study that attempts to marry existentialism with Marxism to give an account of basic social phenomena and the ways in which human history is dominated by inhuman necessity. Apart from brief, pungent remarks in the Critique, his new approach to ethics is found in two main sources: notes prepared for the paper he gave at the “Ethics and Society” conference in Rome in 1964 (work still largely unpublished), and a set of notes written for a series of lectures to be given at Cornell University in 1965 – subsequently cancelled in protest over the war in Vietnam – on the topic “Morality and History” (published in 2005). Part Two of Sartre in Search of an Ethics deals primarily with these sources over the years from Sartre’s essay Search for a Method (1957) to his ideas about the conditions of moral development in childhood in the first volume of his study of Flaubert, The Family Idiot (1971). Sartre is concerned in these sources to analyse the nature of ethical (normative) experience and to expose the problems that confront diverse moral systems in history. The great question for him is to explain the relationship between ethics and history, and to show how a true ethics “that founds and dissolves alienated moralities” might reflect the direction of history towards the satisfaction of needs in human fulness. The study concludes with a consideration of the main themes of Hope Now, The 1980 Interviews, discussions with Sartre late in his life on ethics and Jewish messianism, conducted, recorded, and later published by his secretary Benny Lévy. Sartre was blind and very weak by this time, and the work is unsatisfactory in many ways. Even so, his voice comes through in a final expression of belief in a common humanity and hope for a society in which “relations among human beings are truly ethical.” “Paul Crittenden’s new book develops Sartre’s ethics in the light of his vast oeuvre, including those texts either published after his death or still unpublished. The focus is on Sartre’s ontological or existentialist ethics; his socialist or dialectical ethics; and briefly, on his final ethics of reciprocity. Crittenden argues that Sartre was right to claim that morality was a dominant preoccupation for him. Sartre’s further claim that ethics is both inevitable and impossible is borne out by his own labour to develop an ethics. Crittenden argues against a common misconception that Sartre advocated a relativist ethics; rather, he maintains that Sartre took an ‘absolutist … view of good and evil’ a conviction that is defended throughout the book. (6) He also examines Sartre’s hints in Being and Nothingness that an ethics of deliverance and conversion may be possible, tracing the evolution of his thought in Notebooks for an Ethics and finding this reference to conversion throughout his texts. While Sartre may posit a goal like the Kantian kingdom of ends, his focus is on concrete ethics for a specific historical time and place. Crittenden highlights Sartre’s ethic of generosity and his concern with freedom, creativity, love and truth, presenting an inspiring and hopeful side to Sartre’s ethical outlook. The book is both a sympathetic reconstruction of Sartre’s scattered works on ethics and a critical inquiry into whether Sartre succeeds by his own lights, unstintingly examining the problems with the different ethics he proposes. Paul Crittenden gives a thorough and rigorous analysis of Sartre’s unending search for ethics, identifying the weak points and the gaps that require reconstruction in such a way that it can help those in search of an ethics in general. Sartre’s attempts to delineate an ethics are placed in historical context, and fascinating comparisons with other ethics, such as virtue ethics, and Kantian ethics are made. Crittenden provides an illuminating discussion of Sartre’s ‘Cornell Lecture’ or ‘Morality and History’, one of the first extended treatments of this text. He finds that both Sartre’s existentialist ethics and the dialectical ethics could have been taken further if he had developed a more Aristotelian conception of ethical action. Nevertheless, he demonstrates how Sartre had a powerful vision of the meaning of ethics, including the importance of unconditional ethical norms. The book is a significant achievement and an invaluable source for both Sartre scholars and those new to Sartre.” —Marguerite La Caze, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Queensland ""...for any Sartre scholar, or even those of us relatively new to Sartre's work and the study of ethics in general, the possibilities presented to us by the chance to re-consider the fundamental bounds of enquiry in this field are made vivid in a way not previously available to those wishing to enter the discussion. In this respect, the reader is bound to welcome Crittenden's not un-timely omission of the stricture and the 'second-guessing' of Sartre's authorial intent in seeking out an ethics, present in other accounts"". Steven Churchill, La Trobe University in SOPHIA Journal (2010) 49: 329-332 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-11-01,Peter Baofu,The Future of Post-Human Martial Arts: A Preface to a New Theory of the Body and Spirit of Warriors,Hardback,978-1-4438-1372-3,44.99,"Is it really true that martial arts, in spite of their popularity in this day and age of ours, have, at their deepest level, the promised land of “self-knowledge,” “the expression of beauty,” or something highly spiritual to be pursued for the human soul? Or, to put it in a different way, what exactly makes martial arts so amazing that, somehow, they will eventually lead the practitioners to the spiritual realm of self-cultivation in its highest depth? Contrary to the conventional wisdom about martial arts as held by many over the ages, this popular view about martial arts has become so legendary that their dark sides have yet to be systematically explored and that the lofty aims of martial arts are neither possible nor desirable to the extent that their proponents would like us to believe. Of course, this is not to say that the very tradition of martial arts is absolutely useless, or that the literature on martial arts hitherto existing in history is spiritually unworthy to be appreciated. Instead, this book constructively offers an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of martial arts, in special relation to the body and spirit of warriors—while learning from different views in the literature, without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them, as they are not necessarily compatible with each other), and, in the end, transcending them towards a new horizon not conceived before. This seminal view, if proven valid, will fundamentally change the legendary way that people have thought about martial arts—from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what I originally called its “post-human” fate. _____________________ ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-11-01,Neil Spurway,"Theology, Evolution and the Mind",Paperback,978-1-4438-1369-3,19.99,"In pre-scientific thought mind itself, and its religious perceptions particularly, were considered gifts from God, injected into a previously created world of matter. By contrast, all the contributors to this book accept an evolutionary account of life, mind and its religious dispositions. However they hold more divergent views on the relation of mind to body and brain, on the validity of those religious dispositions, and on how far even Christ, and his predicted Second Coming, may be seen as aspectc of the evolutionary process. The seventeen contributions are rewritten and extended versions of papers first delivered at the annual conference of the UK’s Science and Religion Forum, held at Canterbury Christ Church College in Sept 2007. Though most speakers were British, representatives from The Netherlands, Jordan, Zimbabwe and USA also contributed. Invited individual chapters consider the general pattern of evolutionary thought, arguing that it can make a major contribution to the maturation of theology; archeological evidence for the emergence of religion, and the proposal that it was an inevitable phase in human evolution; the contribution of religious concepts to the development of our species, and the question whether that provides any ground for accepting them as true; the unresolved debate whether mind is a separate entity from brain, or a consequence of its activity; and the melding of paleo-anthropology with theology to provide an integrated account of humanity and its culmination in Christ. Each of these papers is the subject of an individual expert response, and they are all drawn together in an overview essay which concludes the first part of the book. The second, shorter part contains a selection from the papers contributed by registrants for the meeting. Their topics are whether mathematics consists of truths discovered, or thought-forms developed, by human minds; ecological awareness as an evolutionary development; the neurobiology of freewill and sin; an evolutionary perspective on holistic medicine; and the impressive fruitfulness of juxtaposing neurophysiological and biblical concepts of the human body-mind. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-11-01,Kathleen O’Dwyer,The Possibility of Love: An Interdisciplinary Analysis,Paperback,978-1-4438-1387-7,19.99,"The Possibility of Love is an exploration of a concept close to the human heart. Grounded in the ordinary, everyday experiences of human living, the book provides an exploration of the diverse obstacles to the experience of love, the consequences of love’s absence, and the unquenchable desire for love which propels, influences and ultimately motivates much of human behaviour. The Possibility of Love poses the question: is love actually possible between human beings, or is it an ideal, a fantasy, an illusion, or a comforting aspiration which enables a palliative denial and distortion of the reality of human being? This expansive question is approached through an interdisciplinary analysis. The author addresses the question of love’s possibility as it is explored in a selection of literature from the disciplines of philosophy, psychoanalysis and poetry. The interdisciplinary nature of the study is based on the assertion of an interconnection between the three disciplines, and that this interconnection enables a unique and insightful exploration of the question of love’s possibility. Thus, the question is explored from diverse view-points, and also from different time-frames; convergences and divergences are noted and discussed, and conclusions are drawn from the ensuing findings. The book is essentially a philosophical analysis of an emotion that significantly impacts on human experience. It attests to the gradually increasing acknowledgement of the power of emotional experience in the search for knowledge, wisdom and truth. Thus, it is a uniquely honest exploration of human nature in contemporary times. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-12-01,Junichi Toyota,Kaleidoscopic Grammar: Investigation into the Nature of Binarism,Hardback,978-1-4438-1446-1,34.99,"This monograph deals with binary features in the evolution of human civilisation and cognition, with a particular focus on language. Our life is surrounded by various pairs of binary features, and this is termed binarism in this work. Binarism is pervasive, ranging from nature (biological) to culture (anthropological and archaeological) and, without a doubt, to language. Binarim serves as a good base for further development, and as a system becomes more complex, binarism is broken and more complex systems involving third or fourth options emerge. In the case of language, the earliest human language, as argued here, consisted only of nouns; however, these nouns had a distinction between active and inactive nouns. The active nouns referred to action or productivity, which later turned into verbs and inactive nouns stayed as nouns. It was during this period that language became equipped with a base to develop further with a distinction between noun and verb. This is the onset of various changes towards the complexity of modern languages, essentially, kaleidoscopic grammar. Various changes in language stem from binarism, and as languages evolve, the pairs such as noun v. verb are broken and a grammatical system in general becomes more complex. The importance of binarism is not restricted to language and it is a powerful tool in evolution at different levels. The pervasiveness of binarism is a specific feature that should not be overlooked in evolution as a whole. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-12-01,Pablo Muchnik,Rethinking Kant: Volume I,Paperback,978-1-4438-1432-4,19.99,"This collection of essays bears witness to the richness and vitality of Kantian studies in North America. It contains the bulk of the papers presented at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Eastern Study Group of the North American Kant Society (ENAKS), which took place at the University of Southern Maine in May 2007. It offers a sample of a whole generation of Kantian thought, ranging from recent Ph.Ds, to up and coming young scholars, to some well-established and influential players in the field. Gathering voices from philosophers at all levels of their professional development, the goal of the collection is to offer a glimpse at the current state of Kantian scholarship in the US. The essays collected here cover some of the most important and controversial themes in Kant’s philosophy: questions of freedom, the relation between anthropology and morality, the notion of the highest good and Kant’s teleology, radical evil and revolution. The last section places Kant in the context of German Idealism and contemporary discussions in analytic philosophy and liberal political theory. Some critical, other exegetical or apologetic, all these essays show a sustained effort to Rethinking Kant and indicate his importance for current philosophical debates. "," ""We North American Kant scholars like to flatter ourselves that in the last generation the center of gravity in Kant studies has moved across the north Atlantic and settled in the New World. Whether or not this is a self-flattering illusion, it is one likely to be encouraged by reading the high quality Kant scholarship and lively controversies about Kant's philosophy that are present in this volume."" -- Allen Wood - Stanford University “Pablo Muchnik’s collection is unique in bringing together new interpretations of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant from the best young scholars with the work of some of the most renowned mature scholars in this field. The volume covers many aspects of Kant’s philosophy, including metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, and anthropology as well as essays placing Kant’s philosophy in historical context. In many cases the contributions of young scholars contest the received wisdom of the field. This collection is shaped by new and fresh interpretations that intentionally take on received wisdom in order to demonstrate what it is that is missing or lost in established positions. Even if, at the end of the day, some of our established positions seem to have the stronger set of reasons on their side, it is important that young scholars continue to probe their limitations so that we gain a clearer sense of what we gain and what we lose when we undertake the art of interpretation.” Sharon Anderson-Gold, Professor, Department Head, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, New York ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009-12-01,J. Jeremy Wisnewski,"Review Journal of Political Philosophy: Volume 7, Issue Number 2",Paperback,978-1-4438-1395-2,14.99,"The Review Journal of Political Philosophy publishes high-quality work in moral and political philosophy, broadly-construed. The Journal prides itself on its eclecticism, not limiting itself to any particular tradition, school of thought, or historical period. We publish articles, reviews, and discussion pieces from leading and new scholars from analytic and continental perspectives, along with articles that bridge the gap between these traditions. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-01-01,Ken Gale and Jonathan Wyatt,Between the Two: A Nomadic Inquiry into Collaborative Writing and Subjectivity,Paperback,978-1-4438-1637-3,19.99,"In this unique work, Ken Gale and Jonathan Wyatt bring together three areas of scholarship: collaborative writing as method of inquiry, the philosophical approaches of the French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, and the performativity of both writing and the “self”. The book is a reflexive exploration into the theory and practice of collaborative writing, with their between-the-twos—sequences of exchanged writings using a variety of forms and genres—at the book’s heart. Their collaboration offers an experimental, transgressive and nomadic inquiry into subjectivity. Based upon the authors’ joint doctoral dissertation, the book draws for its theoretical base primarily from the work of Deleuze, from both his philosophical “figures” and the insights that he offers into his collaborations with others. It also tells a story, conveying a sense of a relationship developing over time. This book will interest both academics and postgraduate students in the field of qualitative inquiry, including those involved in narrative inquiry, cultural, communication and performance studies, and autoethnography. ","“Sometimes I read a book and wish I'd written it. Ken and Jonathan’s book is one of them It is highly original, thought provoking, and emotionally compelling. The authors show us through ‘writing spaces’ of interactive writing how Deleuzian ideas can be applied to discover (uncover) intimacy and ‘becoming’. I found myself glued to the pages by the authors' ingenuity, openness, and intelligence. It is not only erudite, it is a really good read.” —Professor Laurel Richardson, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, The Ohio State University, USA “In Between the Two, Ken Gale and Jonathan Wyatt provide us with multiple spaces and traces of what can be, and might be, for embodied academics seeking to engage with experimental and transgressive modes of representation as a way to explore lived experience in all its messy complexity. Beautifully crafted and laced with an emotionally sensitive scholarship, their work is both provocative and evocative, inviting us to weave our own stories into those they offer for consideration. It is an invitation well worth accepting.” —Professor Andrew C. Sparkes PhD, Director: Qualitative Research Unit, School of Sport & Health Sciences, Exeter University “This is a powerful, richly nuanced, evocative work; a stunning and brilliantly innovative pedagogical and theoretical intervention. This new book provides ground zero—the starting place for the next generation of theorists who want to write their way through and across the theoretical, methodological and interpretive implications that result when voice, identity, presence and writing are made problematic. A stunning accomplishment. Their model of collaborative writing and performance autoethnography charts new territories of inquiry. They show the rest of us how to move from the personal to the political, and back again. We are all in their debt.” —Norman K. Denzin, Distinguished Professor of Communications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-01-01,Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe and Daniel Watt,"Ethical Encounters: Boundaries of Theatre, Performance and Philosophy",Hardback,978-1-4438-1695-3,39.99,"The essays on dimensions of theatre ethics at the heart of contributions to this volume demonstrate how individual academics and theatre artists have thought about the ethical implications of theatre, and present the concepts and paradigms that have guided and influenced their thinking. They raise relevant issues and debate these in clearly defined, but not uniform ways—ways that have helped them to come to terms with the issues they raise. The reader may agree or disagree with individual authors or individual arguments. If such agreement or disagreement supports them to form and develop their own opinions and resultant actions, this book has served its purpose. This volume arises from the 2007 and 2008 TaPRA conferences and all of its essays, at one level or another, reflect upon what is possible within the environment of theatre. Possibility is one form of ethical engagement with the boundaries of philosophy and performance and reminds us of the inherently political aspect of any ethical question. So whilst the most obviously ethically oriented papers appear towards the end of the volume, in a separate section, let us bear in mind that throughout certain limits of representation will always be in question for any understanding of theatre. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-01-01,Hans Götzsche,"Memory, Mind and Language",Hardback,978-1-4438-1639-7,44.99,"Memory, Mind and Language celebrates the 30th anniversary of the The Nordic Association of Linguists (NAL) and the main contribution is the history of those first 30 years. The book is also an overview of trends and basic problems in linguistics in the first decennium of the 21st century. It takes up a number of topics in the field, among them the question of synchrony vs. diachrony in the language sciences, and issues of how to investigate the relationship between language, brain and mind. The book proposes some preliminary solutions to that problem, and, most significantly, it touches on both general and specific issues in theory and analysis, e.g. ‘adverbs in English and Norwegian,’ ‘verb semantics,’ ‘pronouns in Estonian,’ ‘morphology and neurolinguistics,’ ‘word order and morphology,’ ‘the nature and use of prepotions’ and ‘speech acts.’ The contributing scholars come from a variety of traditions in linguistics, a fact that shows the broadness of the content. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-01-01,Timothy J. Madigan,"W. K. Clifford and ""The Ethics of Belief""",Paperback,978-1-4438-1648-9,14.99,"W. K. Clifford (1845-1879) was a noted mathematician and popularizer of science in the Victorian era. Although he made major contributions in the field of geometry, he is perhaps best known for a short essay he wrote in 1876, entitled ""The Ethics of Belief"", in which he argued that ""It is wrong always, everywhere, and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."" Delivered initially as an address to the august Metaphysical Society (whose members included such luminaries as Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Gladstone, T. H. Huxley, and assorted scientists, clerics and philosophers of differing metaphysical views, ""The Ethics of Belief"" became a rallying cry for freethinkers and a bone of contention for religious apologists. It continues to be discussed today as an exemplar of what is called 'evidentialism', a key point in current philosophy of religion debates over justification of knowledge claims. In this book, Timothy J. Madigan examines the continuing relevance of ""The Ethics of Belief"" to epistemological and ethical concerns. He places the essay within the historical context, especially the so-called 'Victorian Crisis of Faith' of which Clifford was a key player. Clifford's own life and interests are dealt with as well, along with the responses to his essay by his contemporaries, the most famous of which was William James's ""The Will to Believe."" Madigan provides an overview of modern-day critics of Cliffordian evidentialism, as well as examining thinkers who were positively influenced by him, including Bertrand Russell, who was perhaps Clifford's most influential successor as an advocate of intellectual honesty. The book ends with a defense of ""The Ethics of Belief"" from a virtue-theory approach, and argues that Clifford utilizes an ""as-if"" methodology to encourage intellectual inquiry and communal truth-seeking.' The Ethics of Belief' continues to provoke and stimulate controversy, which was perhaps Clifford's own fondest hope, although he had no right to believe it would do so. ","“This work is extremely well-written, lucid and well-organized. Madigan gets the reader into the subject with an account of Clifford’s life and, equally important, a vivid description of the intellectual climate of the time. Through this, and other means, he conveys the importance of the subject and of Clifford’s contribution. The last two chapters illustrate, convincingly, that the subject is still important and not just of historical interest. The views of contemporary philosophers are discussed and perceptively dealt with.” —Richard Taylor, former Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester and author of Good and Evil; Restoring Pride: The Lost Virtue of our Age; and Metaphysics, among many other works. “Madigan’s study of Clifford’s best-known work is unusually well-written, is cogently argued, and raises important issues in a thought-provoking way. He shows a discerning appreciation of scholars who do not agree with him. In short, this is a treat to read and ponder.” —Rollo Handy, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo ""[Madigan's] writing is historically and philosophically scrupulous yet rewardingly accessible to any educated reader. W. K. Clifford and 'The Ethics of Belief' is that ultimate rarity: an uncompromising philosophical history that nonspecialists can read not just with pleasure but with gusto."" —Tom Flynn, editor of Free Inquiry and The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief ""...in this excellent study Dr Tim Madigan shows why we should take notice of this remarkable man and his 'secular sermon, delivered to exhort individuals to live up to their highest epistemic abilities"" Jon Wainwright, Open University in Philosophy Now, Feb 2010. ""The much-anthologized essay of W. K. Clifford, ""The Ethics of Belief"" is often read in ignorance of its background, and this study of Madigan is useful for correcting this. It is a useful study...giving a first summary of the issues and the debates associated with it."" Patrick Giddy, University of Kwazulu-Natal in Metapsychology Online Reviews, March 2011 Volume 15 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-02-01,Michael Tawa,Agencies of the Frame: Tectonic Strategies in Cinema and Architecture,Hardback,978-1-4438-1745-5,44.99,"Agencies of the Frame: Tectonic Strategies in Cinema and Architecture aims to explore parallel approaches to the conceptualisation and composition of place, space, time, materiality and narrative in cinematographic and architectural practices. Beyond drawing useful implications for design, the book investigates a range of themes to mobilise a reconsideration of cinema and architecture as non-representational practices. It suggests that films and buildings can be read and designed as assemblages not directed to the formal expression of meaning, but to the framing of strategic and enabling conditions of emergent sense, realised within the tectonic and material conditions of the cinematic and the architectural as such. Succinct analyses of precedents in film, music, painting and architecture are used to foreground tectonic and compositional characteristics related to spatiality, temporality and narrative that are transferable across disciplines and practices. The thematic framework of the book engages theoretical material by Heidegger, Simondon, Deleuze, Nancy, Agamben and Stiegler. Classical modernist and postmodernist films by Dreyer, Antonioni, Hitchcock, Godard, Paradjanov, Tarkovski, Herzog, Lynch and Heneke are analysed side by side with important traditional, modernist and contemporary buildings, including works by Corbusier, Scarpa, Lewerentz, Zumthor and Markli. Illustrated with drawings and photographs by the author, the book should be of interest to practitioners and students of art, design, cinema and the built environment who wish to expand the creative scope and resonance of their work. ","“In this elegant, erudite work, Michael Tawa traces the points of intersection and difference between architecture and cinema, touching on the materiality of space, time, light and sound - how they are experienced, held in our memories, and reactivated. With great sensitivity and originality Professor Tawa draws on a range of theoretical perspectives offered by Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida and Nancy, amongst others, putting them to work in his analysis of the built environment and cinema. Arguing that it is often the more discordant elements between disciplines that produce the most productive resonances, the reader is invited to imagine possibilities for enacting new opportunities for thinking, experiencing and making. It is for this reason that Agencies of the Frame: Tectonic Strategies in Cinema and Architecture, provides such a valuable resource for emerging and established artists, architects and filmmakers, as well as a broader, critically engaged, reading audience.” —Dr. Elizabeth Presa, Head of The Centre for Ideas, Victoria College of Art, The University of Melbourne “From my own philosophical perspective, Michael Tawa’s work presents a double interest which at the same time situates it at the heart of our fin de siècle contemporary theory: 1) on the one hand, an interest at the level of sense (sense and not meaning), which constitutes, as we know, an acute question for our late modernity threatened by nihilism (or the negation of sense): by proposing the project of a ‘design lexicon’ which goes beyond all technical or thematic dictionaries, he aims to renew and displace the entire field of architectural reflection, firstly by the choice of terms, then by the treatment of their semantic, etymological, evocative or suggestive values. … 2) On the other hand, an interest as the question of being-in-common, that is to say the question of pre-political, pre-social plurality (or else beyond the social and political maybe) that makes of us (human beings, but also all beings) beings-with as essentially as they are, each one and in groups, singular beings. … Hence the double form of this research – significance of design and design of place, questions of place for sense – engages a resolutely active and practical thinking, a philosophy in action of design as that which traces sense or possibilities of sense. This thinking, which it seems to me takes up again the most fundamental vocation of architecture, appears perfectly adapted to the formation of architects, urbanists and landscape architects. …Michael Tawa rests his work on very solid and broad knowledge of the great contemporary philosophical currents, as well as the artistic and ethical givens and sensibilities of a world in whose diversity he moves with great ease of discourse and design, engaging concepts, words, images or tonalities from all sorts of traditions and cultural settings.” — Jean-Luc Nancy, Philosopher “Michael Tawa's writing moves between architecture and film, producing unexpected resonances in the reader. This is a book for creative designers, who will find themselves absorbed in arguments and informed by erudition, but the real point of the reading will be for the effect it will have on the reader's world. Things that passed unnoticed will come into focus. By dwelling on acutely observed moments in films and buildings, Tawa evokes the special qualities that make them memorable, and shows their rapports with one another. Buildings house everyday activities, and films often show us things that are not in themselves remarkable, but with careful juxtaposition, a memory or a shadow, dripping water or brute stone can evoke a sense of something much more deeply interfused. One comes away from the text wanting to act on intuitions that were previously dormant, but which have been gently roused and turn out to have a life of their own.” —Andrew Ballantyne, Professor of Architecture, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-02-01,Santiago Sia,Ethical Contexts and Theoretical Issues: Essays in Ethical Thinking,Hardback,978-1-4438-1764-6,39.99,"Ethics has become a particularly relevant topic for discussion and a subject for serious study. It has a very long tradition, of course; but nowadays one hears frequently of the need, because of abuses or concerns, to formulate and adopt ethical codes in various areas or professions. This book aims to make a philosophical contribution to the discussions and debates on the topic. Compared to the traditional approach to the philosophical study of ethics, however, this book adopts a different strategy. It shows that such ethical thinking, in the concrete particulars, originates in various academic and professional contexts, among others. But inasmuch as theoretical issues require wider and more intensive attention, it argues that ethical thinking needs to be pursued further and that it can be aided by philosophical investigations. In its concluding chapters the book presents an alternative foundation for ethical decision-making. Philosophically grounded, it moves away from an individualistic ethical perspective to a relational one that has been shaped through dialogue with the various contexts in which ethical think-ing arises. ","An interesting, thoughtful and well-written book intended to create a better understanding of the field of Ethics and how Ethics is a vehicle that can smoothly move across a variety of disciplines, practices and professions. I would certainly use it in my teaching.” - Elaine Englehardt, Editor, Teaching Ethics, Distinguished Professor of Ethics, Utah Valley University, USA ""Santiago Sia’s new book will be welcomed by practitioners in many areas, including the sciences and medicine. It has been some time in the making. I watched with interest as his thought evolved through engagement with real problems in medicine, radiology and indeed other areas. His approach is well-grounded in the heritage of western thought and fully alert to its various trends and schools. It provides and contextualizes real useful and timely advice. I strongly recommend it to those in the sciences or medicine who are perplexed by the ethical issues they daily encounter. A real addition to the literature. ” - Jim Malone, Robert Boyle Professor of Medical Physics, Trinity College/St James' Hospital, Dublin, Ireland; Consultant to the IAEA, Vienna, Austria ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-02-01,Santiago Sia,Ethical Contexts and Theoretical Issues: Essays in Ethical Thinking,Paperback,978-1-4438-1765-3,24.99,"Ethics has become a particularly relevant topic for discussion and a subject for serious study. It has a very long tradition, of course; but nowadays one hears frequently of the need, because of abuses or concerns, to formulate and adopt ethical codes in various areas or professions. This book aims to make a philosophical contribution to the discussions and debates on the topic. Compared to the traditional approach to the philosophical study of ethics, however, this book adopts a different strategy. It shows that such ethical thinking, in the concrete particulars, originates in various academic and professional contexts, among others. But inasmuch as theoretical issues require wider and more intensive attention, it argues that ethical thinking needs to be pursued further and that it can be aided by philosophical investigations. In its concluding chapters the book presents an alternative foundation for ethical decision-making. Philosophically grounded, it moves away from an individualistic ethical perspective to a relational one that has been shaped through dialogue with the various contexts in which ethical think-ing arises. ","An interesting, thoughtful and well-written book intended to create a better understanding of the field of Ethics and how Ethics is a vehicle that can smoothly move across a variety of disciplines, practices and professions. I would certainly use it in my teaching.” - Elaine Englehardt, Editor, Teaching Ethics, Distinguished Professor of Ethics, Utah Valley University, USA ""Santiago Sia’s new book will be welcomed by practitioners in many areas, including the sciences and medicine. It has been some time in the making. I watched with interest as his thought evolved through engagement with real problems in medicine, radiology and indeed other areas. His approach is well-grounded in the heritage of western thought and fully alert to its various trends and schools. It provides and contextualizes real useful and timely advice. I strongly recommend it to those in the sciences or medicine who are perplexed by the ethical issues they daily encounter. A real addition to the literature. ” - Jim Malone, Robert Boyle Professor of Medical Physics, Trinity College/St James' Hospital, Dublin, Ireland; Consultant to the IAEA, Vienna, Austria ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-02-01,"David Jones, Jason M. Wirth and Michael Schwartz",The Gift of Logos: Essays in Continental Philosophy,Hardback,978-1-4438-1758-5,39.99,"The Continental tradition has always placed great emphasis on the Logos. The Gift of Logos: Essays in Continental Philosophy celebrates and situates this emphasis in the genre of the gift and its giving. The process of receiving, or giving, of the gift overcomes the existential alienation and separation that is so present in the human condition. To ritualize giving and its gifting is to provide a syntax of solidarity that bespeaks our desire for cohesion and need for identities beyond our own. To give a gift is to befriend. The gift of logos is more than a gift from the gods and goddesses; it is an act of giving for those friends of wisdom—for those philosophers who give to each other and to their worlds and receive the blessings of logos from each other. The increasing objectification of human being has mobilized a regressive narcissism that shows the ego’s reassertion in the light of the meaningless quantifying forces from without. By not reflecting deeply enough upon its conditions of existence in the modern world and on its orginary moments, philosophy itself has not been immune from this besotted sense of self. Although not an invective against thinking nor against modern and contemporary philosophy’s genuine advances, The Gift of Logos portends to shed the delusion that theoretical re-description is somehow the same as transforming who we are. This transformation is our greatest gift to each other. To give it voice is the gift of Logos and what this collection of essays commemorates. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-02-01,Jürgen Lawrenz,The Nature of Reality and the Reality of Nature: A Study of Leibniz’s Double-Aspect Ontology and the Labyrinth of the Continuum,Hardback,978-1-4438-1724-0,39.99,"This new, comprehensive study of Leibniz’s system of thought reveals a philosopher equally intrigued by the complexity of physical reality and the fascinations of his metaphysical laboratory. Many of his most important, but never previously published papers are evaluated in this book. Too often put down as an arch-metaphysician, Leibniz is seen in these pages as a venturer of breathtaking boldness, his ambition being nothing less than to actually solve the enigma of existence. Accordingly his system embraced science equally with metaphysics; they complement and pollinate each other. The outcome is a view of his system as a double ontology. Reality is the domain of the actual; metaphysics the laboratory of the possible. Metaphysics springs to life with his scintillating detective work on force, motion, time, space, limits, infinity, folds, fractals and many other issues that are ‘hot’ again today; while in all these a direct line is kept open to their impact on physical existents and our understanding of reality. This book is equally suited to expert Leibnizians as to students of Early Modern philosophy; and it may be read with profit by anyone interested in this thinker, whom Bertrand Russell called “one of the supreme intellects of all time”. ","“Amongst his immediate philosophical precursors and contemporaries, Leibniz was the most informed in the history of philosophy and logic, the most scientifically innovative, and the most metaphysically dazzling—and difficult. Like few other studies, Jürgen Lawrenz’s appreciates all Leibniz’s beauty, originality and complexity. His book is an invaluable contribution to Leibniz studies which deserves to become the standard work in the field.” —Wayne Cristaudo, Head of European Studies, University of Hong Kong “[This work] offers a staunchly realist reading of Leibniz. Lawrenz provides one the most extended rebuttals of an idealist interpretation of Leibniz available, and this book will doubtless provoke much controversy.” —Stephen Gaukroger, Professor of History of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Sydney “Jürgen Lawrenz adds to the recent reinterpretations of Leibniz’s philosophy with his provocative and illuminating view of Leibniz as a double-aspect ontologist. This is a clear and systematically argued work that should be of interest to all concerned with Europe’s complex philosophical heritage.” —Paul Redding, Professor of Philosophy, University of Sydney ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-02-01,Wendy Parkins,William Morris and the Art of Everyday Life,Hardback,978-1-4438-1757-8,34.99,"William Morris—Victorian socialist, designer, poet, artist and craftsman—urged his contemporaries to ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful,’ foregrounding his belief in the importance of beautiful practicality in daily domestic life. This volume of essays seeks to examine the importance of Morris’s interest in everyday life for his art, literature and politics in his own day and beyond. Contributors explore the many aspects of the everyday that informed William Morris’s work—from his utopian socialism to his designs for domestic interiors—and, in the process, show how his insistence on the value of beauty and pleasure in daily life formed the basis of his call for a radical transformation of society. As this volume demonstrates, William Morris’s concern with the ordinary concerns and pleasures of daily life remains relevant in the twenty-first century. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-03-01,Damian Ilodigwe,Berkeley: A Portrait,Hardback,978-1-4438-1855-1,34.99,"Berkeley is popular in the philosophical tradition as the philosopher who denied the existence of matter in favour of spiritual substance. His esse est percipi thesis is understandably seen as a recipe for subjective idealism. While there is a point to this reading of Berkeley, it remains to be seen whether it does justice to the full significance of Berkeley’s opposition to philosophical materialism. In this book, essentially a sympathetic reconstruction of Berkeley’s philosophy, Ilodigwe approaches Berkeley’s Immaterialism from the standpoint of the philosophical issues raised by the emergence of modern science in the seventeenth century. He argues that when approached in this manner, Berkeley’s opposition to philosophical materialism not only emerges as an attempt to overcome false abstractions, but it also becomes possible to make sense of his claimed alliance with common sense in his battle against philosophical materialism. While the realist portrait of Berkeley that emerges from this exercise is not free from difficulties, it arguably offers us a fuller conspectus of Berkeley’s philosophy of immaterialism. ","“Berkeley is a notoriously difficult philosopher. Dr. Ilodigwe has undertaken the challenging task of showing that Berkeley is not a subjective idealist, but a defender of common sense realism. To understand his philosophical writing properly, one has to take into account not only the context of writing of the Bishop, but also his attempt to counter materialism which threatened to follow the development of modern science. I think Dr. Ilodigwe is really convincing in his defence of this unusual understanding of Berkeley. This interpretation is not completely new. But the merit of Dr. Ilodigwe’s book is that it not only critically compares the two interpretations, but also explains why the subjectivist interpretation could/can be so prevalent. This has to do both with the immediate reception of Berkeley’s thought by important writers like Hume and Reid, but also with the difficult dialectical style of Berkeley ’s philosophizing. This book is a successful defence of its thesis. It is based on thorough research both historically and philosophically. It is a nice contribution to scholarship and can perfectly serve as a good introduction to Berkeley’s philosophy.” —Herman De Dijn, Professor Emeritus (Professor of Modern Philosophy), Institute of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-03-01,Eric R. Severson,I More than Others: Responses to Evil and Suffering,Hardback,978-1-4438-1771-4,39.99,"Fyodor Dostoyevsky expressed a strange and surprising sentiment through one of the characters of The Brothers Karamazov. A dying young man named Markel declares: ""Every one of us has sinned against all men, and I more than others.” He later says: “…every one of us is answerable for everyone else and for everything.” Markel’s absurd claims have engendered many reflections on the nature of suffering and what it means to be responsible for someone else’s suffering. The world has no shortage of pain and evil; what exactly is the relationship between suffering and responsibility? Markel’s declarations press forward a question that drives this essay collection: how responsible should we consider ourselves for the suffering of the world? This volume is a collection of essays that struggle in various ways to understand and respond to several philosophical, theological and practical problems. In each case the authors grapple with issues surrounding suffering, immorality, evil, exploitation and oppression. The contributors share a clear concern for the ways that philosophers and theologians should respond to the problems of suffering and evil. They also share a conviction that these remain intense and central problems for philosophy and theology. Evil is an obstacle for belief, for morality, for hospitality, and for hope. This book struggles to address the particular and strong sense of responsibility that falls on Christians when it comes to understanding and, more importantly, responding to the problems of suffering and evil in the world. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-03-01,Mohammad Amin Naser,Revisiting the Philosophical Foundations of Trademarks in the US and UK,Hardback,978-1-4438-1779-0,39.99,"This book challenges the philosophical foundations of current trademark systems in the USA and the UK. It argues that the process of trademark creation should be transformed to the more practical and realistic proposition of “co-authorship” of trademarks by both the public and trademark owners. The book develops the “Economic-Social Planning justification”, which departs from the economic argument that trademarks reduce consumer search costs, and then proposes that trademarks should be formulated in a manner which helps foster a just and attractive culture. Trademarks are thus seen as source and origin identifiers, rather than quality identifiers. The book focuses on the often ignored role of the public and their rights in trademarks and calls for the adoption of the confusion rationale for trademark protection, not the dilution individualistic rationale. The two jurisdictions of this book prove adverse effects over the rights of the public in terms of using trademarks in cultural and expressive contexts, thereby threatening the principles of freedom of expression as a human fundamental right. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-03-01,"Steve Brie, Jenny Daggers and David Torevell",Sacred Space: Interdisciplinary Perspectives within Contemporary Contexts,Paperback,978-1-4438-1773-8,19.99,"The identification and positioning of sacred space within contemporary contexts has, to date, received scant attention. In reflecting upon a broad spectrum of conceptions of what constitutes sacred space, this collection of interdisciplinary essays presents a new perspective on an area that is developing into an important theological and philosophical concept. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-04-01,Eleanor Milligan and Emma Woodley,Confessions: Confounding Narrative and Ethics,Hardback,978-1-4438-1920-6,39.99,"This edited collection draws on a range of disciplines in exploring the central place of narrative in social inquiry and understanding the ethical life. It provides scholarly and practical insights into the rewards and potential pitfalls of working in, and with narrative. It offers readers a broad range of carefully considered examples; the use of art in enhancing insight into the plights of rural communities in Australia; the use of illness narratives in medical education; applying narratives of torture survivors and torturers in shaping humane political response and policy in the face of terrorism, and the place of the music, as a vehicle of story telling and moral growth. This volume illuminates the explicit links between the importance of narrative, that is, the telling of stories to create shape and meaning in our lives, and ethical engagement so critical to the achievement of a good life. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-04-01,Petr Glombíček and James Hill,Essays on the Concept of Mind in Early-Modern Philosophy,Hardback,978-1-4438-1918-3,34.99,"An important task for every major philosopher is to offer us an understanding of the nature of mind. The essays in this volume discuss different aspects of the philosophical theories of mind put forward in the century and a half that followed Descartes’ Meditations of 1641. These years, often referred to as the ‘early-modern’ period, are probably unparalleled for originality and diversity in conceiving the mind. The volume not only includes two essays on Descartes’ own thinking, but there are also examinations of what Spinoza, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, Reid, the Cambridge Platonists, and others, have to say about the nature of mind. The aim of the volume is to represent some of the best contemporary research and reflection on mind in early-modern philosophy. The contributors, who teach at a range of universities in mainland Europe, Great Britain and North America, are Margaret Atherton, Miran Božovič, Petr Glombíček, Boris Hennig, James Hill, Nicholas Jolley, Jan Palkoska, G. A. J. Rogers, and Anthony Savile. All the essays appear here for the first time. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-04-01,"Roland Faber, Henry Krips and Daniel Pettus","Event and Decision: Ontology and Politics in Badiou, Deleuze, and Whitehead",Hardback,978-1-4438-1926-8,44.99,"This book addresses the philosophies of Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze, and Alfred North Whitehead in relation to the concepts of event, ontology and politics. For Whitehead, the event is the realization of becoming, the actualization of the “groundless ontological ground” of creativity, the process of self-decision on possibilities yet undecided, the aesthetic and ethical impulse of existence. For Deleuze it is the expression of life without possession, bodies without organs, the virtual or actual reality of singularity and novelty. For Badiou, the event breaks from the situation, in which we always count (reality) as one and multiplicity as united. For all three thinkers, the event necessitates a radical politics that critiques traditional ontologies of social bodies, cultures, and art. The perspective that emerges from the book is of humanity constituted by, but also constituting a multiplicious event cycle: each person and thing bringing their own personal event into their experience of an event outside of themselves. The convergence of this multiplicity creates our complex world—a complexity not defined as aporia or impossibility, but rather infinity—that is always already still creating. Event and Decision offers the reader a live experience of this evental theory, an experience that mirrors the event of three philosophers themselves. And if the mirror you peer into shows you something foreign, something different than what you know as yourself, then this difference makes reading the book easy. The only impossibility is to lose your way. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-04-01,Michael Fuller,Matter and Meaning: Is Matter Sacred or Profane?,Hardback,978-1-4438-1907-7,34.99,"We live in a material world. But what is matter? Can it point us towards meanings outside itself, or can any meaning it possesses only be invested in it by human beings? To what extent might these semantic activities overlap? How have our current understandings of matter and meaning developed from those of past thinkers, in both Western and non-Western contexts? These and many other questions were addressed at a conference held under the auspices of the Science and Religion Forum at Liverpool Hope University in 2008. That conference brought together some leading figures in the disciplines of theology and the natural sciences, and a selection of the papers given at it is now presented in this book. They offer important new historical, scientific and theological insights from a variety of perspectives to those with an interest in the fast-developing area of the dialogue between these disciplines; and they will also be found valuable by anyone who wishes to explore the complexities of this dialogue, as it moves beyond the black-and-white histrionics of its presentation in the popular media. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-05-01,Anthony Paul Smith and Daniel Whistler,After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion,Hardback,978-1-4438-1987-9,49.99,"Continental philosophy of religion has been dominated for two decades by “postsecular” and “postmodern” thought. This volume brings together a vanguard of scholars to ask what comes after the postsecular and the postmodern—that is, what is Continental philosophy of religion now? Against the subjugation of philosophy to theology, After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion argues that philosophy of religion must either liberate itself from theological norms or mutate into a new practice of thinking in order to confront the challenges religion presents for our time. The essays do not propose a new orthodoxy but set the stage for new debates by reclaiming a practice of philosophy of religion that recovers and draws on the insights of a distinctly modern tradition of Continental philosophy, confronts the challenge of rethinking the secular in the light of the postsecular event, and calls for a move from strictly critical to speculative thought in order to experiment with what philosophy can do. This collection of essays is indispensable for anyone interested in the relationship between philosophy and theology, political questions regarding religion and in what contemporary speculative Continental philosophy has to add to philosophy of religion. ","“A superb and groundbreaking collection featuring the brightest scholars in the continental philosophy of religion. The book deals with a feast of topics, and will become indispensable the moment it is published.” – Kenneth Surin, Professor of Literature and Professor of Religion and Critical Theory, Duke University “Every once in a while, a collection of essays comes along that does not merely contribute to a field, but redraws its boundaries, repositions it in unforeseen ways. This is one such collection. The burgeoning work of ‘continental philosophy of religion’ is both employed and interrogated to startling effect. This is no tired and worn treadmill of ideas, but a disciplined armoury and an unruly intervention. The editors and authors display a well-won confidence in philosophy at the limit. They are not afraid to take on the sacred cows of orthodoxy or the modish assumptions of the recent ‘turn to religion’ in continental thinking. Fascinating new insights into the modern canon sit alongside adventurous forays into cutting edge speculative philosophy and non-philosophy (the editors’ introduction is worth the admission price alone). Demanding, provocative and groundbreaking, this is required reading for anyone who wants to know what matters in philosophy of religion today.” – Steven Shakespeare, Lecturer in Philosophy, Liverpool Hope University and Co-Facilitator of the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-05-01,Tihamér Margitay,Knowing and Being: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Michael Polanyi,Hardback,978-1-4438-2062-2,39.99,"Michael Polanyi is one of the most inspiring and original thinkers in the 20th century. He launched a new and independent philosophical tradition and fertilized many intellectual areas from cognitive psychology to management sciences. Polanyi’s systematic thoughts span over many areas of philosophy, yet his most fruitful ideas, the fundamentals of his system are contributions to epistemology and ontology. His theory of tacit knowledge, his critique of both the objectivist and the subjectivist views of knowledge, his concept of emergence, and his theory of spontaneous order and coordination—just to mention a few—are probably the most important and most well-known. Polanyi also gave us a new picture about science in which scientist’s personal participation guided by his cognitive and moral commitment, passions and trust, is an essential part of knowledge itself, in both its discovery and its validation. This volume focuses on these epistemological and ontological issues. Thirteen critical essays analyze, interpret and develop further Polanyi’s ideas in the two parts of the book: Knowing and Being. Most of these papers address Polanyian themes in a comparative way, in dialogue with other major traditions illuminating both sides and helping to re-evaluate Polanyi in broader philosophical context. The title of this book also refers to a seminal collection of papers of Michael Polanyi (edited by Marjori Grene in 1969), Knowing and Being. ",""". . . this one provides an excellent summary of the present positions with respect to the main themes of polanyi's philosophical contributions. Overall, for those who are concerned and interested in Michael Polanyi's highly original and fearlessly-expressed ideas on scientific and philosophical themes, Knowing and Being is highly recommended as an up-dated account of their acievements. Norman Sheppard, The Journal of the Society for Post-Critical and Personalist Studies ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-05-01,Viorel Guliciuc and Emilia Guliciuc,Philosophy of Engineering and Artifact in the Digital Age,Hardback,978-1-4438-1970-1,44.99,"Our world became engineered, remaining, nevertheless, human. Through the philosophy of engineering, both Engineering and Philosophy are profoundly involved in the transcendental curve of the debates on the future of humankind in the Era of the Artifacts, brought by the emergent technologies of robotics, genetic engineering and nanotechnology. In the Era-Just-Before-Singularity, while engineering is improved by philosophy (as Peter Simons has demonstrated), the “respected system of perplexities we call philosophy” (Jorge Luis Borges) are encouraged by engineering. This book is an anthology of papers presented during PHEADE 2009 (Philosophy of Engineering and Artifact in the Digital Era—www.goldenideashome.com/pheade2009/)—an exploratory workshop organized in the mythical county of Bucovina (in the northern Romania). Registered by The Reasoner as one of the first East European meetings of Philosophers and Engineers of the third millennium, the event was organized by the Romanian Society for Philosophy, Engineering and Technoethics, in an original attempt to redefine the engineered future of the humankind. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-05-01,Michael J. Matthis,"The Beautiful, the Sublime, and the Grotesque: The Subjective Turn in Aesthetics from the Enlightenment to the Present",Hardback,978-1-4438-1963-3,34.99,"The eighteenth-century Enlightenment represents a turn toward experience, that is, toward the experiencing subject. Still the Enlightenment involves an aspiration toward objective truth in the ideals of the newly emerging sciences and in the experiments in democracy that were beginning to transform the political landscape of Europe and America. Immanuel Kant’s towering philosophical achievement in his critical works helps to reformulate a meaning of objectivity that is congenial to the climate of inquiry and freedom in that remarkable century, a meaning that is unburdened of the metaphysical commitments of many of his predecessors. Kant’s revolution in philosophical thought gives us an objectivity that is crucially related to epistemic conditions rooted in subjectivity, a correlation between subjectivity and objectivity that carries over as well into his critical treatises concerned with ethics and aesthetics. This book of essays explores the tension between subjectivity and objectivity as it develops in the Enlightenment in Winkelmann, Hume, and Kant. The focus is upon aesthetic theories concerning the beautiful, the sublime, and the grotesque. The question by two of the authors as to whether aesthetic enjoyment of the blues is morally justified underscores an interest in these essays in the connection between aesthetics and ethics. This concern of the relation of aesthetics to judgments in cognition and in morality underlies an area of peculiar interest to Kant, and therefore to many of these essays. Finally the authors examine a turn toward the subjective in the Postmodern world of art and aesthetic theory, a turn that represents a relaxation of the original Enlightenment tension between subjectivity and objectivity. It also represents perhaps a grotesque turn toward the extreme of subjectivity in the realm of Postmodern theory, an extreme toward which at least one of the authors casts a critical eye. ","""In the Beautiful, the Sublime and the Grotesque: The Subjective Turn in Aesthetics from the Enlightenment to the present, Matthis has collected a variety of contemporary critical responses to this paradox of Enlightened subjectivity. The range of interest is both provocative and entertaining–from the ideas of Hume and Kant to the theories of Poe, the blues, art museums, Bob Jones University, and the millieu of post modernist artists and writers. The lately formed Cambridge Scholars Publishing Company has shown its commitment to scholarly excellence in encouraging and sposoring the work that went into the making of this volume. The Beautiful, the Sublime and the Grotesque is for the most part a clearly written and cohesive study of the lasting consequences of the enlightenment's attempt to break with both faith classicism. It is book for libraries, for scholars, for students at every level."" Lloyd Daigrepont in Review of Texas Books, Volume XXV, Issues 3 and 4; Fall 2010. ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-05-01,"Marius Timmann Mjaaland, Ola Sigurdson and Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir","The Body Unbound: Philosophical Perspectives on Politics, Embodiment and Religion",Hardback,978-1-4438-1984-8,39.99,"A philosophical inquiry into politics, embodiment and religion takes us straight to some of contemporary culture’s most notorious issues: suicide bombing, the veiled and the exposed body, and present-day biopolitics. Interpretations of the body have always been contested, both in the history of philosophy and in the history of religions. On the one hand, the body has been perceived as a prison, binding the soul to transience, darkness, and confusion. Yet on the other hand, it has itself been controlled and disciplined by reason and will, law and culture. The ten contributors to The Body Unbound suggest that inquiries into the nature of human embodiment must take into account both context and history in order to scrutinize them and to uncover resources for unbinding a body which has been doubly bound. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-05-01,"Stephen Scales, Adam Potthast and Linda Oravecz",The Ethics of the Family,Hardback,978-1-4438-2057-8,49.99,"Our families are our first and most important ethical training grounds. But what is the family? And what are our ethical commitments to our family members and to the broader moral community? After a brief introductory chapter on basic ethical concepts and theories, the essays in this volume provide readers with ethical analyses of issues ranging from same-sex marriage to a controversial proposal to “license” parents. The chapters cover love, sex, marriage, parents and children, the relationship between the family and the larger moral community, and the influence of emerging technologies on the ethical issues inherent in family life. The volume is intended to open up this exciting territory in applied ethics to those interested in philosophy, family studies, social work, and to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the ethical forces at work in this most basic social institution. ","“The Ethics of the Family is not just about ethics. And it is not just about family. It presents a cross-disciplinary and up-to-date scholarly approach to numerous social and philosophical controversies that involve different traditions, contrasting frameworks of justice, and current medical and technological developments. This could easily be used for several philosophy courses, including Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy and Human Nature. In addition, it would fit well into any ethics course in a Family Studies Department. Students will be surprised to find elements of their own lives in many of these chapters.” —Dr. Alex Hooke, Stevenson University “This comprehensive foray into the ethical issues inherent in family life marks an exciting frontier for ethical inquiry. The papers take us from artificial reproductive technologies to Confucian filial piety, from the ethics of same-sex marriage to claims of intergenerational justice between children and parents. This is fertile ground for students of ethics to explore and this volume is an excellent guidebook for the journey.” —Dr. Wolfgang W. Fuchs, Towson University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-05-01,Shlomo Giora Shoham,To Test the Limits of Our Endurance,Hardback,978-1-4438-2068-4,44.99,"A new approach to culture and cultural patterns is elucidated through relating a theory of personality and social characters to the genesis of myths and religions. Cultures are classified along a continuum and their relationship to a given personality structure is based on the assumptions that cultures possess generalized traits, and that these traits relate to characters of individuals. Cultures, like man, pass through the age phases of childhood, youth, manhood, culminating in old age. It is the cultural goals and the means to achieve them that become the culture pattern. What are these cultural goals? How do we achieve them? Every society and culture has its own indigenous mythology. Myths move in time from sacred myths recorded before history to modern myths, like master detectives Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, or the master spy, John Le Carré’s Smiley, or even Superman, who realizes the dreams of omnipotence among the downtrodden, henpecked inhabitants of Metropolis. Thus myths provide meaning and motivation for human behavior. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-06-01,Jos de Mul,Cyberspace Odyssey: Towards a Virtual Ontology and Anthropology,Hardback,978-1-4438-2127-8,44.99,"The emergence of the hominids, more than five million years ago, marked the start of the human odyssey through space and time. This book deals with the last stage of this fascinating journey: the exploration of cyberspace and cybertime. Through the rapid global implementation of information and communication technologies, a new realm for human experience and imagination has been disclosed. Reversely, these postgeographical and posthistorical technologies have started to colonize our bodies and minds. Taking Homer’s Odyssey and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as his starting point, the author investigates the ‘informatization of the worldview’, focusing on its implications for our culture–arts, religion, and science–and, ultimately, our form of life. Moving across a wide range of disciplines, varying from philosophical anthropology and palaeontology to information theory, and from astrophysics to literary, film and new media studies, the author discusses our ‘cyberspace odyssey’ from a reflective position beyond euphoria and nostalgia. His analysis is as profound as nuanced and deals with issues that will be high on the agenda for many decades to come. In 2003 a Dutch Edition of Cyberspace Odyssey received the Socrates Prize for the best philosophy book published in Dutch. ","“Jos de Mul's Cyberspace Odyssey is an original, timely, lively, and well written book.” —Hubert L. Dreyfus (Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley). “As much about cybertime as cyberspace, this book talks foremost about cyberbeing. The journey explores the tidal waters of the real and the virtual, by leaving no concept unexamined, including the roles of causality and mutual dependencies between the real, the virtual, and the hybrid that are shaping our lives.” —Piet Hut (Theoretical Astrophysics and Computer Modeling, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) “De Mul proposes that the human exploration of cyberspace shifts our mindset from establishing what is the case, to what might be possible. This view indeed provides the leitmotif for this delightful, sophisticated, and imaginative set of essays into how are ways of life are increasingly absorbed into the unbounded realms of digitalized reality. Moving across multiple academic disciplines, and linking scholarly concerns to multiple sites of everyday life, De Mul offers us all a virtual feast.” —Kenneth J. Gergen (Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, author of Relational Being, Beyond Self and Community) ""...its philosophical readings of various aspects of so-called cyerbspace, in particular of information and religion, are clearly written and engaging"" Nicholas Gane, University of York in Information, Communication & Society, 14:2, 294-295 (2011) Endorsments of previous editon: The British Journal of Aesthetics (2001) reviewed Romantic Desire in (Post)Modern Art and Philosophy as follows: “As it illuminates various shades of aesthetic ambiguity in (post)modern art and culture, Romantic Desire opens up a new arena where previously isolated, contradictory forces can finally come together and communicate. In creating such space De Mul takes the crucial preliminary steps towards understanding and reconciling the ageless conflict between our desire for the eternal and our awareness of its inaccessibility”. The Review of Metaphysics (2007) wrote about the The Tragedy of Finitude: ""De Mul is an ambitious commentator. He reconstructs both biography and cultural context, and he interprets virtually all of Dilthey's more substantial writings while seeking to engage with his critics. In addition to extensive discussions of Dilthey's own writings, there are long sections on Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Gadamer, and Derrida. In a book that may stand as one of the best and most thorough in the recent critical literature on Dilthey, de Mul successfully tackles all of these challenges"". ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-06-01,"Joy Schmack, Matthew Thompson and David Torevell with Camilla Cole",Engaging Religious Education,Hardback,978-1-4438-2134-6,39.99,"This book is the first to bring together a number of essays which deal directly with the crucial topic of ‘engagement’ in Religious Education. But it also breaks new ground by creating a dialogue with the world of ethics. Here readers will find fresh insights relevant to the 21st century. Contributors, all committed to excellence in Religious Education, include school teachers, sixth form tutors and those working in higher education. Addressing central issues in the debate from a range of theoretical and methodological positions, the book raises important questions about how we might understand and promote positive ‘engagement’ at the present time. Primarily, it has one aim in view: to make Religious Education a more stimulating and enjoyable experience for all those involved. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-06-01,Chandana Chakrabarti and Sandra Jane Fairbanks,"Politics, Pluralism and Religion",Hardback,978-1-4438-2106-3,39.99,"The chapters in this volume discuss the many facets of pluralism in a liberal democracy, as well as the interplay between religion and politics. Religion is a central theme in this book for two reasons. First, religions often claim to possess truths about the nature of God and the proper path to lead in order to achieve eternal life in heaven, or enlightenment or spiritual liberation. Unfortunately, different religions offer different sets of truths on these issues, which create an obvious competition and rivalry between religions. Historically, religious differences have produced countless wars, violent clashes, human rights violations and various forms of religious persecutions. Our record of coexisting peacefully in a religiously pluralistic world has been abysmal at best. Some chapters in this book discuss religious pluralism, the clash between science and religion and the role religious reasons should play in a public dialogue about public policy and law. The second reason why religion is a prominent theme is that, since religion is constitutive of the identities of so many individuals, its influence on politics, for better or for worse, is extremely significant. Many chapters explore the various ways in which religion can affect politics: From the dangers of theocracy, to Jihadist terrorism, to a Hindu approach to addressing terrorism, to a Unitarian Universalist perspective on ethical eating and to the Christian virtue of forgiveness applied to political dispute resolution. All in all, the chapters in this book represent a variety of approaches to understanding the interrelated problems associated with religion and politics in a pluralistic world. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-06-01,Tim Dare and W. Bradley Wendel,Professional Ethics and Personal Integrity,Hardback,978-1-4438-2128-5,44.99,"Professional roles are often thought to bring role-specific permissions and obligation, which may allow or require role-occupants to do things they would not be permitted or required to do outside their roles, and which as individuals they would rather not do. This feature of professional roles appears to bring them into conflict both with ‘ordinary’ or non-role morality, and with personal integrity which is often thought to demand some form of personal endorsement of one’s conduct. How are we to reconcile the demands of roles with ordinary morality and with personal integrity? This collection draws together a set of papers which explore these questions as they bear upon a number of different professional roles, including those of the lawyer, the judge and the politician, and from a variety of perspectives, including contemporary analytic moral theory, jurisprudence, psychoanalytic theory, virtue ethics, and contextualism, and, more broadly, from philosophy and legal academia and practice. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-06-01,Pablo Muchnik,Rethinking Kant Volume 2,Hardback,978-1-4438-2117-9,44.99,"The goal of the series Rethinking Kant is to bear witness to the richness and vitality of Kantian studies in North America. The collection is unique in its kind, for it garners papers from a whole generation of Kantian thought, ranging from doctoral students and recent Ph.Ds, to up-and-coming young scholars, to some well-established and influential players in the field. This combination is designed to take the pulse of current Kantian scholarship in the U.S. and rethink its fundamentals. This is the second volume in the series. It contains papers from three regional study groups of the North American Kant Society. Contributions tackle some of the most important and controversial themes in Kant’s philosophy: the relation between concepts and intuitions, Hume’s influence on Kant, the strengths and weaknesses of moral constructivism, Kant’s theory of moral feeling, the faultlines within Kant’s political philosophy, the role of cosmopolitanism in moral progress, the systematic function of the Critique of Judgment, and Kant’s alleged racism. Some critical, other exegetical or apologetic, these essays show a sustained effort to rethink Kant and explain his inescapable influence on contemporary philosophical debates. ","“One of the most welcome developments in recent Kant scholarship has been the emergence of the several Kant Study Groups, supervening on the North American Kant Society and its already very full slate of sessions at the three major APA conferences. Rethinking Kant: Volume 2, contains papers from each Group (Eastern, Midwest, and Pacific), and the papers themselves in turn deal with basic issues in nearly every major area of Kant's philosophical work: his metaphysics-and-epistemology, his ethics, his aesthetics, and his political theory. The papers are first-rate; the Introduction is equally good; and the whole package represents the cutting edge of contemporary Kant-studies. This volume is decisive proof that Kantian philosophy is the most broadly active and richly productive historically-oriented sub-area in contemporary philosophy.” —Robert Hanna, University of Colorado at Boulder (Boulder, CO) ""Kant studies in North America is a vibrant academic domain, and the new instrument for capturing its impulses presented in the Rethinking Kant series is extremely welcome. This second volume in the series contains a range of essays—by newer as well as long familiar Kant scholars—that take up a stunningly broad and deep array of issues in the work of Kant and offer new and provocative perspectives. Each contribution, vetted in the context of session meetings of the North American Kant Society, shows rigorous 'rethinking' and testifies to the vitality of the field."" —John H. Zammito, Rice University (Houston, TX) ""Rethinking Kant: Volume 2 brings together the work of both new and established scholars in ways that provoke as well as inform. Rich in insights, this fresh and stimulating collection of essays easily fulfills the promise of its title."" — Susan Shell, Boston College (Boston, MA) ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-06-01,Charles Hartshorne and W. Creighton Peden,Whitehead’s View of Reality,Hardback,978-1-4438-2076-9,34.99,"Whitehead’s View of Reality developed from conversations between the authors about the need for a work that would be of assistance to students ready to undertake a study of Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality. The volume begins with a biographical sketch of Whitehead’s life, in order that one can understand the various stages in his professional development as well as the radically changing times in which his thought progressed. It is hoped that the Whiteheads’ encounter with Gertrude Stein will provide the student with a stronger feeling of Whitehead as a person. Charles Hartshorne undertook the task of placing Whitehead within a historical context. The context in which Whitehead is presented is that of being one of the few great philosophers in Western culture who engaged in speculative or metaphysical philosophy. The influence of Plato and Leibniz is noted, as well as Hartshorne’s personal preference for Peirce and Bergson in relation to Whitehead’s speculative philosophy. Whitehead agreed with all these great metaphysicians that the explanation of matter was to be sought in mind, not that of mind in matter. Hume, Kant, Russell and William James are noted as major non-speculative thinkers whose thought received careful consideration by Whitehead. Hume, the Buddhists, and Whitehead agreed that, strictly speaking, a so-called substance is a new concrete reality each moment. It is Hartshorne’s judgment that Whitehead does the best job of retaining aspects of truth in our commonsense notions of individual things and persons. Hartshorne also discusses the paradoxes that arise as we search for our self-identity. He contends that we can escape from these paradoxes if we accept Whitehead’s contention that concrete actualities are not in the last analysis enduring, changing substances but successive momentary stages of what are called substances or individuals. This should lead us to understand that we have an asymmetrical identity with the successive momentary stages of our relations. Hartshorne also notes that the basic concepts developed by Whitehead are based on his understanding that actual entities are the real subjects that experience, perceive, remember, and think. Thus, the basic form of experience is perception. Hartshorne further suggests that perhaps Whitehead is the first philosopher to view perception, which includes memory, as experience of the past rather than of the present. In discussing Whitehead’s philosophical theology, Hartshorne indicats that his view of God was an alternative to the standard metaphysical conception of deity which had prevailed since Aristotle. The problem of divine knowledge had been at the core of the problems with classical theism. The issue was whether everything I do is decided at my coming to exist. If so, then we are nothing but a clog in the cosmic machinery. Hartshorne suggests that the first theologian to view this issue sharply was Fausto Socinus who took the idea of human decision-making seriously and rejected the notion that divine omnipotence determines human decisions. He suggested among others had something in common with the Socinians. Hartshorne concluds his remarks focusing on unresolved problems in Whitehead’s theism. Creighton Peden’s responsibility is to present an exposition of Whitehead’s philosophy, with primary attention at first given to his basic terms, as well as to the foundation principles and structure of his method. Analysis is then given his metaphysical scheme from the perspective of his method. The focus of attention then shifts to Whitehead’s doctrine of God and his view of religion. Peden concludes with a comparative evaluation of Whitehead’s position with traditional Christian thought. Consideration is given to three general problems raised by traditional Christians. The first point of contention is that Whitehead’s God is not the infinite and eternal God of the Universe but is rather a limited God within the Universe. In the second case, traditional Christian theology would assert that Whitehead’s God does not actually save because he does not save the individual. The third problem would hold that Whitehead’s God is not the or a personal God. ","“For the many who enjoyed—and relied upon—this classic collaboration between Charles Hartshorne, one of our most profound philosophers, and Creighton Peden, one of our most insightful narrators of liberal religion, the reappearance of this book (enhanced by a biography of Whitehead and a new bibliography of Hartshorne on Whitehead) will be greeted by cheers. For the newer generation, now participating in the current boom in fresh Whitehead interpretations and applications, it will function as unearthed treasure, available again for many uses.” —Frederick Ferré, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Georgia, USA “This expanded version of a long-regarded classic introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy by his most reliable interpreters is most welcome. With the inclusion of a brief biography and a carefully chosen bibliography, it will prove most useful to students and general readers interested in knowing more of Whitehead’s work, now influential in so many branches of learning, not least theology.” —D. W. D. Shaw, OBE, Professor Emeritus of Divinity, University of St Andrews, Scotland ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-07-01,Marian F. Sia and Santiago Sia,From Question to Quest: Literary-Philosophical Enquiries into the Challenges of Life,Hardback,978-1-4438-2159-9,39.99,"In facing up to life and its challenges, questions inevitably arise. Different situations provoke specific questions—mostly trivial but frequently fundamental—always seeking some kind of answer. While the transition from question to quest is a rather natural one for human beings and the need for answers is a serious human demand, the quest itself is significant, precisely because it is a human task. This book offers a number of literary-philosophical enquiries into these challenges of life. But it is the one set of quests—stimulated, deepened and widened by literature and philosophy as well as developed in a literary and philosophical way. Among the topics covered are: the search for meaning in life, the quest for wisdom, the aim of moral striving, the need for community life, the importance of relationships, the challenge of suffering, the desire for deliverance, and the longing for immortality. ","“This is truly a work of imaginative thinking. It confronts the great questions in a world in which we are all too often content with avoiding them in our obsession with particularity. It listens attentively to the great masters of philosophy and literature which have gone before, but knows that we can never truly think until we have summoned the courage to think for ourselves ... I really enjoyed reading this book!” —Prof David Jasper, Professor of Literature and Theology, University of Glasgow; Changyang Chair Professor, Renmin University of China “This book is a perfect illustration of Whitehead’s famous metaphor of the flight of an aeroplane. The authors start from the ground of solid observation of, and literary insights into, the challenges of everyday life; then they take a flight into the thin air of speculative thinking, using the resources of philosophy. And then, again, they land for a renewed and fresh interpretation of thorny issues, including suffering, death and immortality. An inspiring quest and a splendid work!” —Prof Jan Van der Veken, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-07-01,Rusudan Makhachashvili,Linguophilosophic Parameters of English Innovations in Technosphere,Hardback,978-1-4438-2139-1,29.99,"The monograph researches the aspects of the English vocabulary development processes in the sphere of new computer technologies. The primary supposition of cyber word-stock terminological nature leads into the study of both linguistic (morphological and semantic) and ontological paradigmatic parameters of innovative cyber-vocabulary of the English language. Linguistically, the development of English cyber-vocabulary acquires an ambivalent character. Primarily, the sources of English computer vocabulary root in the conventional word-formation types. However, the enrichment process of the computer terminology of English incorporates the emergence of the word-formation ways and means, authentic for the given lexical sub-system. Moreover, the evolutionary progress of cybervocabulary determines the new conceptual approach to the “word-formation element” notion. The ontological paradigmatic parameters of English cyber-vocabulary are featured from the following perspectives: lexico-semantic perception of basic metaphysic dimensions of the technosphere (that being “space” and “time”) and the anthropologic terminological categorization of technosphere, thus both the anthropocentric and the sociocentric paradigmatics of English innovative cyber-vocabulary being reflected. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-07-01,K. A. Beville,Preaching Christ in a Postmodern Culture,Hardback,978-1-4438-2151-3,34.99,"Starting with some observations relating to shifts in ecclesiology and identifying them as a move beyond contextualization to syncretism this work goes on to assess the feasibility of preaching in a postmodern culture which rejects both the idea of absolute truth and authority used as power. It traces the historical and philosophical development of postmodernism. The Enlightenment project is deemed to have failed and Christianity is perceived as an oppressive metanarrative. In a world that is becoming increasingly sceptical and where preaching practitioners are becoming disillusioned this book offers some guidelines about preaching to postmoderns. In a relational age rationality is impotent, but the author distinguishes between authoritative and authoritarian preaching allowing hope for the survival of the homiletic task. Humility is presented as preferable to certitude and persuasion is redefined. The author suggests using an inductive mode of communication as a means of engaging postmodern listeners. He signposts a way forward in the labyrinthine complexity of the new paradigm and demonstrates that the homiletic task is still feasible. Thus this book will be of interest to teachers and students of theology as well as pastors desiring to develop a new apologetic strategy. ","“Kieran Beville discusses the powerful wind shift of Postmodernism, the subtle ways it is affecting society and how preachers must reset their sails to become effective. In this scholarly primer the author engages with philosophers and the leading homileticians of the day. His approach is succinct without getting bogged down or becoming superficial. Dr Beville’s book provides clear and useful handles for understanding the elusive nature of postmodernity. He writes chiefly for teachers and students of the art of preaching in western societies yet this is a practical book that will encourage all those engaged in preaching and other forms of Christian communication. Preachers who ignore the urgent challenge of this book do so at their own peril and at the risk of talking to themselves in the stale backwater of irrelevance.” —Dr Geoff Pound, Theologians Without Borders “Kieran Beville’s Preaching Christ in a Postmodern Culture is an extremely helpful analysis of the crisis that has overtaken preaching with the emergence of postmodernity in western culture. He rightly demonstrates that a full-blown embrace by the church of the postmodern critique of past ways of communicating the gospel, in particular, the traditional emphasis on preaching, is a sure path to theological and ecclesial disaster. On the other hand, he rightly points out that it is not at all helpful for the church to be sullen and reactionary at this turn of events in western culture, trying to live in some past ‘golden age’ when things were done right! Beville guides the reader through this modern—or should one say postmodern!—Scylla and Charybdis and provides a helpful template for preaching that takes due cognizance of the new cultural paradigm and that also emphasizes the vital importance of clear communication of the best news a human being can hear. Highly recommended.” —Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin, Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky; and Research Professor of Irish Baptist College, Constituent College of Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-08-01,Adrian Mirvish and Adrian van den Hoven,New Perspectives on Sartre,Hardback,978-1-4438-2228-2,49.99,"This volume deals with a number of topics that have not previously been specifically addressed before in a single text. A chapter on Sartre and religion talks about his thought in relation to Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism, while one on Sartre and children discusses his work in relation to the issues of freedom, pregnancy and autism. Beyond this, there are an additional seven chapters covering a wide variety of topics by leading scholars in the fields of philosophy, literature psychology, history and political thought. While prior publications on Sartre have generally divided his work into two periods, pre-and post-Marxist, this volume deliberately stresses a middle and final period as well. As representative of the middle period, there is an emphasis on Notebooks for an Ethics, while Sartre's last work, Hope Now, is also treated as being philosophically significant in its own right. This approach helps to cast a new light on what Sartre has to say about authenticity, childhood and consciousness as embodied, among other subjects. The volume also addresses many and diverse issues of current interest, including those of freedom, Marxism and Sartre's relation to ethics. There are sections of the book that deal with history and the historical situations that helped to shape Sartre’s thought, as well as articles that deal with Sartre as a specifically French thinker. A chapter deals with Sartre’s relation to women , and here the issues of maternity as problematic, plus authentic, adult relationships are discussed. Finally, in addition to authors in philosophy and literature, there are articles by a child psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist to help to provide new insights on Sartre's work. Even as an academic philosopher Sartre always remained an iconoclast and the aim of this book is, at least partially to capture and provide the reader with insight into this spirit. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-08-01,"Ian Leask with Eoin Cassidy, Alan Kearns, Fainche Ryan and Mary Shanahan",The Taylor Effect: Responding to a Secular Age,Hardback,978-1-4438-2263-3,39.99,"The Taylor Effect presents an original and diverse collection of essays addressing Charles Taylor’s magisterial A Secular Age. Ranging from close and critical readings of Taylor’s formulations and suppositions; to comparative studies of Taylor and various ‘interlocutors’; to applied approaches utilizing Taylor’s concepts; to explorations launched from a Taylorian foundation; the 13 chapters comprise a multifaceted exploration of Taylor’s multifaceted achievement. Given the vast, synoptic sweep of Taylor’s magnum opus, the contributors represent a suitably diverse range of interests, backgrounds and expertise—members of departments of philosophy, literature, philosophical theology, systematic theology, moral theology, education, and political science, whose interests stretch from Plato to Girard, phronesis to pedagogy, Deism to dogmatics, medical ethics to aesthetics... Accordingly, The Taylor Effect is not only one of the first major responses to A Secular Age: the astonishing breadth as well as the quality of contributions will ensure that it remains a central reference point in any future discussion of Taylor’s work. ","“Charles Taylor is one of the most inspiring philosophers of our time, addressing urgent questions of politics, ethics, language, culture and religion. In this volume some of his keenest readers engage in timely debate with the master and bring the discussion to new levels of intellectual excitement and insight.” —Prof. Richard Kearney, Boston College and University College Dublin ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-08-01,Jovan Babić and Petar Bojanić,"World Governance: Do We Need It, Is It Possible, What Could It (All) Mean?",Hardback,978-1-4438-2264-0,44.99,"In the age of globalization and with increased interdependence in the world today, there is a question we may have to raise: Do we need, and could we attain, a world government capable of ensuring peace and facilitating worldwide well-being in a just and efficient way? There are obvious and strong arguments in favour of viable and sustainable world governance, even for a unified world state. Two of them seem to be especially strong: security, which is becoming more and more a matter of joint concern; and sustainability, which is increasingly visible in issues such as climate change, requiring unified and far-reaching action. One of the main objections raised against world governance is not that it is impractical, but that it is unnecessary and even undesirable. There is a fear that world government would be or become tyrannical. German philosopher Immanuel Kant devised a project of “perpetual peace,” but he was against a world state, advocating instead a kind of confederation of the states in the world. Finally, if a world government is indeed formed, how far should the instruments and tools of such a body reach? These and other issues have been explored in this book. Covering a wide range of disciplines—from philosophy to jurisprudence, ethics, and social science—the book explores how theorists have reflected upon the necessary components of an effective global order. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-09-01,Manas Roy,Concerting Déconstruction,Hardback,978-1-4438-2285-5,39.99,"In re-searching Edmund Husserl’s everlasting notion ‘epoché’ through Pheno→Photo→Word concertment, one can re-discover so many new dimensional lights towards manifestation one of a new Phenomenology→Déconstruction→Déconcert dimension. In ‘Photosynthesis’ mechanism where tree leaves receive & prepare their food materials through sunlight and we may find it same as in all Literatures while they receive their subjective food materials in the form of new literal ideas only through this everlasting Husserlian mechanism of ‘epoché’ or, it is “Photo-mechanism”— the kind dynamism of ‘epoché’ — the “Photo Dynamics”. And ‘Déconcert’ from philosophical feature, may be explained as: “The theory of culturing syntagms by ‘photo-dynamics’ (PD), by concerting themselves with suitable literature(s), making and plying all at a time”. And “Concert-ing Déconstruction” is only an effort towards exploration of the resultant-metaphysics of Derrida’s Philosophy of Déconstruction in the present era. Above all it’s an effort towards re-thinking of Husserl’s Phenomenology more scientifically after Derrida’s Déconstruction; and opening-up of new Déconcertic dimensions—One of it’s new kind dimension may be presented as “Photo-Phenomenology”; and may be introduced as a new branch of “Phenomenology” under the new School: Concertive Humanities; placing for the new dimensional re-searchable study of 21st century’s wisdom of photo-phenomenological Déconcertö Philosophy: The newly emerged “Concertölogy” after “Phenomenology”. And thus, “Concertölogy” may be launched as a new branch of “Philosophy”, after “Phenomenology”. Finally, it simply “Philosophy by Photo-Dynamics”. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-09-01,Richard J. Gelm,"How American Politics Works: Philosophy, Pragmatism, Personality and Profit",Paperback,978-1-4438-2281-7,19.99,"American politics is criticized and belittled by media critics and the public, yet the system is held out as a model for the world. The paradox of this simultaneous cynicism and adulation is rooted in the conflict between the human motives that drive politics. Crisply and clearly written with numerous historical examples, How American Politics Works explains the complex and sometimes confusing American political system in a vibrant and accessible light. Documented with recent and historical scholarship presented clearly in laymen’s terms, How American Politics Works explores the multiple dimensions of politics and the source of Americans’ disillusionment with their government through the “four Ps”: Philosophy, Pragmatism, Personality and Profit. Philosophical and moral principles underpin the key political institutions in America, but values are challenged in the quest to achieve workable political solutions. Policy is rarely made to conform to lofty principles alone. It often results from short-term incremental compromise, driven by people in pursuit of the public good and their own personal self-interest and profit. How American Politics Works explains the inner workings of the American political system, including the power of ideas, political compromise, powerful personalities and the preeminent position of money. While Americans’ high ideals are often illusive in the rough and tumble of political battles, and the public’s trust is bruised with every political scandal, balancing idealism and individual virtue with ambition and self-interest is the dynamic and safeguard of American politics. How American Politics Works offers a comprehensive presentation of the realities, challenges and possibilities of the American political system to bring an understanding, fascination and dedication to the wider public. ","“This is a splendid book and one that should be fully utilized by everyone with an interest in politics and our governing system.” —Former United States Senator George McGovern, Ph.D. in History, Northwestern University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-09-01,J. Jeremy Wisnewski,"Review Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 8.1",Paperback,978-1-4438-2284-8,19.99,"The Review Journal of Political Philosophy publishes high-quality work in moral and political philosophy, broadly-construed. The Journal prides itself on its eclecticism, not limiting itself to any particular tradition, school of thought, or historical period. We publish articles, reviews, and discussion pieces from leading and new scholars from analytic and continental perspectives, along with articles that bridge the gap between these traditions. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-10-01,Marilette van der Colff,One is Never Alone with a Rubber Duck: Douglas Adams’s Absurd Fictional Universe,Hardback,978-1-4438-2363-0,34.99,"What do existential elevators, sentient mattresses, paranoid androids, humans and other aliens have in common? For one thing, they want answers. The fact (yes fact) that there are no answers (except, perhaps, for “42”) causes some humans (and other aliens) to face this empty madness we call life with Sisyphus-like defiance. Others choose to sulk or skulk or annihilate themselves. Another thing these creatures have in common is that they are all born mad, “and some remain so”. One is never alone with a rubber duck explores the premise that Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker Series is not merely characterised by light-hearted comedy, but is underpinned by intricate philosophical ideas, especially those of twentieth century Existentialism and the related notion of absurdity. It also investigates the interlaced functions of Adams’s fantasy and landscapes of alterity, and considers the ambiguous concept of madness as subjective reality. Concepts related to alterity, such as simulation, the structure of reality, dreaming and parallel universes, are investigated as part of Adams’s fantastic story space. In a science-fictional sense, Adams’s aliens satirise the human condition and the monstrosities that lurk at the heart of twentieth century society. ","Lively and colloquial in tone, Marilette Van der Colff’s One is Never Alone with a Rubber Duck highlights the creative absurdity embedded in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. One is Never Alone, with its unassuming scholarship, paradoxically exploits the marginal stance of science fiction to demonstrate the philosophical significance of the genre. —Dr Ralph Goodman, Department of English, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa Adams's many fans will be intrigued by this skillful and entertaining analysis of the philosophical ideas underpinning the extremely successful Hitchhiker series, while those who have been foolish enough to dismiss it as mere frivolous entertainment will be forced to eat their words or blush behind their towels. —Molly Brown, Department of English, University of Pretoria, South Africa ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-10-01,Fabio Vighi and Alexis Nouss,"Pasolini, Fassbinder and Europe: Between Utopia and Nihilism",Hardback,978-1-4438-2378-4,39.99,"The present collection of essays brings into dialogue Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–1982) by comparing their cultural and intellectual legacy. Pasolini and Fassbinder are amongst the last radical filmmakers to have emerged in Europe. Born in Italy and Germany, they inherited a traumatic social and political past which is reflected in their works through a number of similarly articulated and unresolved tensions: high and popular cultures, theatre, literature and cinema, ideology and narration, major and minor codes of expression. The essays in this book examine the uncompromising character of Pasolini’s and Fassbinder’s films. Constantly oscillating between utopia and nihilism, these works invite us to reconsider subjective and collective questions which from today’s perspective seem lost forever. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-10-01,Rosina Neginsky,"Symbolism, Its Origins and Its Consequences",Hardback,978-1-4438-2392-0,64.99,"The notion of the symbol is at the root of the Symbolist movement, but this symbol is different from the way it was used and understood in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In the Symbolist movement, a symbol is not an allegory. The Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck defined its essence in an article that appeared on April 24, 1887, in L’Art moderne. He wrote that the notion of a symbol in the Symbolist movement is the opposite of the notion of the symbol in classical usage: instead of going from the abstract to the concrete (Venus, incarnated in the statue, represents love), it goes from the concrete to the abstract, from “what is seen, heard, felt, tasted, and sensed to the evocation of the idea.” This volume attempts to give a glimpse into the power of the Symbolist movement and the nature of its fundamental and interdisciplinary role in the evolution of art and literature of the twentieth century. It records the studies of a group of scholars, who met and discussed these topics together for the first time in 2009. While illuminating the specificity of Symbolism in art, architecture and literature in different European countries, these articles also demonstrate the crucial role of French Symbolism in the development of the international Symbolist movement. The authors hope that an expanding group, a society of Art, Literature and Music in Symbolism and Decadence (ALMSD), born out of the first meeting, will continue to further this discussion at future conferences and in the printed conference proceedings. ","“The high quality of the scholarship, the exceptionally broad chronological range and the truly international and multi-disciplinary nature of the subjects covered make the book a unique and valuable contribution to the study of Symbolism.” —Peter Cooke, Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Manchester ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-11-01,William Lakos,Chinese Ancestor Worship: A Practice and Ritual Oriented Approach to Understanding Chinese Culture,Hardback,978-1-4438-2495-8,34.99,"This book is a new approach to how we in the West understand China and Chinese culture. It challenges the master narrative of Confucianism and shows that ancestor worship has underpinned Chinese culture in many influential and vital ways and provides a nuanced and more efficacious paradigm through which Chinese culture may be viewed. It is an exposition and analysis of Chinese ancestor worship and its correlations, especially filial piety and ritual, and it shows the intrinsic importance of ancestor worship to Chinese culture. By using a practice theory—ritual—and communication theory approach this work highlights the relationship between the rituals of ancestor worship and their meaning within Chinese culture. In emphasizing the efficacy of ritual to cultural meaning it also questions and compares the master narrative of Confucianism in its role as the prime cultural symbol and paradigm of Chinese culture. China and Chinese culture is conventionally understood by the West through the paradigm and its articulated discourse of Confucianism. In order to ameliorate and overcome the epistemological problematic of a cross-cultural understanding of China, a new approach to the understanding of China and Chinese culture is proposed. The thesis approach is ‘meta-disciplinary’ and multi-viewed, and draws on a range of evidence and theories which focus on the problematic of ‘cross-cultural understanding.’ ","“Confucianism has long been considered as the prime cultural symbol of Chinese tradition and values. This centuries old Chinese official and ruling class discourse has been supported and reinforced by Western scholars, and even current Chinese authorities. In this important book Dr Lakos challenges this master narrative of Confucianism as the Chinese culture and argues instead that ancestor worship practiced in terms of filial piety and ritual has underpinned Chinese culture in many influential and vital ways, both normatively and epistemologically. Dr Lakos also skilfully uses the theory of practice and theory of communication to analyse ancestor worship as a way of thinking and practical activities in Chinese daily life. This study brings fresh air to the field of China studies and provokes critical thinking about what is usually taken for granted.” —Professor Mobo Gao, Chair of Chinese Studies, Director, Confucius Institute, Centre for Asian Studies, The University of Adelaide ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-11-01,Rebekah Humphreys and Sophie Vlacos,"Creation, Environment and Ethics",Hardback,978-1-4438-2508-5,34.99,"Creation, Environment and Ethics aims to contribute to a critical understanding of ethics, evolution and creation, and to provide a pluralistic response to some of the most pressing issues facing the global environment today. Following the example of Professor Robin Attfield, this volume aims to reflect the diverse responses with which theological, ethical and evolutionary discourses have contributed to the broad scope of environmental philosophy and also to ongoing debates about creation and evolution. Critiques of the work of Attfield are provided by prominent philosophers, and Attfield provides a clear and thorough response to each of these critiques in turn. The broad ranging nature of this book will appeal to environmentalists, ethicists, theologians and students alike. Some of the contributions also offer more pragmatic approaches to environmental issues such as climate change, development and sustainability, which will be of interest to a general as well as to an academic readership. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-11-01,H. G. Callaway,Memories and Portraits: Explorations in American Thought,Hardback,978-1-4438-2427-9,39.99,"In Memories and Portraits: Explorations in American Thought, philosopher H. G. Callaway embeds his distinctive contextualism and philosophical pluralism within strands of history and autobiography, spanning three continents. Starting in Philadelphia, and reflecting on the meaning of home in American thought, he offers a philosophically inspired narrative of travel and explorations, in Europe and Africa, illuminating central elements of American thought—partly out of diverse foreign and domestic reactions and fascinating cultural contrasts. This book is of interest for the contemporary interplay of analytic philosophy with American pragmatism and for those focused on the interaction of European and Anglo-American thought and society. In this book, the formalism of analytic philosophy encounters a logically articulate version of the contextualism implicit in the pragmatist tradition; and a deep and abiding interest in natural science is augmented by a more literary account of the social and cultural contexts of inquiry—encountered in many years of travel and life abroad. The final chapter, employing a methodological naturalism, brings the perspectives and lessons, from near and far, back home for renewed reflection. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-12-01,Alun Hardman and Carwyn Jones,Philosophy of Sport: International Perspectives,Hardback,978-1-4438-2516-0,39.99,"The book Philosophy of Sport: International Perspectives represents the work of some of the leading moral and philosophical academics in the popular practice of sport. All contributors are scholars and researchers in the area of the Philosophy of Sport, a growing area of serious study within universities and colleges across the world. The contributors are also active members of the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport—a worldwide organisation dedicated to the development of the philosophy of sport as a serious and influential area of academic study. The book adds to the growing literature, which focuses on rigorously examining the global significance that sport plays in the fabric of twenty-first century life. Articles within the book provide a diverse set of ideas related to sport—from more familiar issue related to the ethics of performance enhancing substances and fair play, to issue of nationalism, and the way sport can contribute to human well-being. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010-12-12,Edward Demenchonok,Philosophy After Hiroshima,Hardback,978-1-4438-1298-6,49.99,"Philosophy after Hiroshima offers a philosophical analysis of the issues surrounding war and peace, and their challenges to ethics. It reminds us that the threat posed to civilization by nuclear weapons persists, as does the need for continuing philosophical reflection on the nature of war, the problem of violence, and the need for a workable ethics in the nuclear age. The book recalls the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the beginning of the nuclear age, the Cold War, and subsequently of the hegemonic unilateralism of the sole superpower. Reviewing early critical responses to the first atomic bombings by such figures as Camus, Sartre, Russell, Heidegger, Jaspers and others, the authors themselves respond to contemporary threats to peace, including the US “global war on terrorism,” the recrudescence of militarism, and the continuation of imperial power politics by other means. In the nuclear age, the use of military force as a political instrument threatens the future of humanity. This poses formidable challenges to philosophy and calls for its transformation. In using memories of the atomic bombings to help us to grasp the moral implications of the current escalation of global violence, the authors hope to show the urgent relevance of nonviolence in the contemporary context. Drawing on a range of philosophical traditions—Taoist and Western—the contributors take up a welter of philosophical and political concerns of topical interest, including human rights, toleration, the politics of memory, intercultural dialogue, the ethics of co-responsibility, and the possibility of a cosmopolitan order of law and peace. Going beyond postmodernism and deconstruction, several of the authors develop a post-critical, constructive paradigm of thinking—a philosophy of the possible and a new methodology for the realization of the creative potential of the humanities. Philosophy is viewed as a peace-promoting global dialogue. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-01-01,J. Jeremy Wisnewski,Review Journal of Political Philosophy Volume 8.2: Naomi Zack’s Ethics for Disaster,Paperback,978-1-4438-2653-2,19.99,"The Review Journal of Political Philosophy publishes high-quality work in moral and political philosophy, broadly-construed. The Journal prides itself on its eclecticism, not limiting itself to any particular tradition, school of thought, or historical period. We publish articles, reviews, and discussion pieces from leading and new scholars from analytic and continental perspectives, along with articles that bridge the gap between these traditions. This volume of The Review Journal of Political Philosophy is devoted to the further exploration, elaboration, and criticism of Naomi Zack’s Ethics for Disaster (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009). For those unfamiliar with the work, this volume also features an overview of the central points of the work in Naomi Zack’s reply to the contributors. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-02-01,Michael Fuller,Matter and Meaning: Is Matter Sacred or Profane?,Paperback,978-1-4438-2672-3,19.99,"We live in a material world. But what is matter? Can it point us towards meanings outside itself, or can any meaning it possesses only be invested in it by human beings? To what extent might these semantic activities overlap? How have our current understandings of matter and meaning developed from those of past thinkers, in both Western and non-Western contexts? These and many other questions were addressed at a conference held under the auspices of the Science and Religion Forum at Liverpool Hope University in 2008. That conference brought together some leading figures in the disciplines of theology and the natural sciences, and a selection of the papers given at it is now presented in this book. They offer important new historical, scientific and theological insights from a variety of perspectives to those with an interest in the fast-developing area of the dialogue between these disciplines; and they will also be found valuable by anyone who wishes to explore the complexities of this dialogue, as it moves beyond the black-and-white histrionics of its presentation in the popular media. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-02-01,Paolo Diego Bubbio and Philip Andrew Quadrio,The Relationship of Philosophy to Religion Today,Hardback,978-1-4438-2664-8,39.99,"The Relationship of Philosophy to Religion Today is a collection of texts authored by philosophers with an interest in contemporary philosophy of religion, its merits and its limitations. The collection has been stimulated by such questions as: “What ought philosophy of religion be?” and “How ought philosophy relate to religion today?” In pursuing such questions, the editors have asked the contributors to offer their insights and reflections on issues that they see as important to contemporary philosophy of religion, with the goal of producing a collection of texts offering the reader a variety of perspectives without privileging any particular philosophical, religious or irreligious orientation. The book covers such themes as the relationship between religion and modernity, faith in keeping with reason, contemplation, the merits and limitations of the atheism, and the relationship between philosophy, religion and politics. ","“A stimulating collection of essays from diverse perspectives, both theoretical and practical, in which the authors reflect on the current state of philosophy of religion and the relationship between the religious and the philosophical enterprises. It makes interesting reading for all who care about the future of the subject.” —John Cottingham, University of Reading and Heythrop College, University of London, England “This is a fascinating collection of philosophical papers focused on contemporary issues in religion and philosophy of religion. The editors have done very well to collect papers that explore this theme through a variety of philosophical perspectives and from different orientations. It is a unique and timely offering on a subject matter that is increasingly important to contemporary philosophy.” —Simon Critchley, New School for Social Research, New York, USA “[This book’s] concern is not with this or that argument in the philosophy of religion, but with what the relation between philosophy and religion is, has been, could be and (its editors say) should be. Some of the essays are theoretically oriented while others focus on the cultural and political possibilities of a critically self-reflective philosophical engagement with religion. They span the divide between analytical and continental philosophy. The editors hope that The Relationship of Philosophy to Religion Today will contribute ‘towards a more fulsome engagement with religion as a phenomenon worthy of philosophical reflection.’ Their hope has, I believe, been fulfilled.” —Raimond Gaita, King’s College London, University of London, England ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-03-01,Anthony Paul Smith and Daniel Whistler,After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion,Paperback,978-1-4438-2704-1,29.99,"Continental philosophy of religion has been dominated for two decades by “postsecular” and “postmodern” thought. This volume brings together a vanguard of scholars to ask what comes after the postsecular and the postmodern—that is, what is Continental philosophy of religion now? Against the subjugation of philosophy to theology, After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion argues that philosophy of religion must either liberate itself from theological norms or mutate into a new practice of thinking in order to confront the challenges religion presents for our time. The essays do not propose a new orthodoxy but set the stage for new debates by reclaiming a practice of philosophy of religion that recovers and draws on the insights of a distinctly modern tradition of Continental philosophy, confronts the challenge of rethinking the secular in the light of the postsecular event, and calls for a move from strictly critical to speculative thought in order to experiment with what philosophy can do. This collection of essays is indispensable for anyone interested in the relationship between philosophy and theology, political questions regarding religion and in what contemporary speculative Continental philosophy has to add to philosophy of religion. ","“A superb and groundbreaking collection featuring the brightest scholars in the continental philosophy of religion. The book deals with a feast of topics, and will become indispensable the moment it is published.” – Kenneth Surin, Professor of Literature and Professor of Religion and Critical Theory, Duke University “Every once in a while, a collection of essays comes along that does not merely contribute to a field, but redraws its boundaries, repositions it in unforeseen ways. This is one such collection. The burgeoning work of ‘continental philosophy of religion’ is both employed and interrogated to startling effect. This is no tired and worn treadmill of ideas, but a disciplined armoury and an unruly intervention. The editors and authors display a well-won confidence in philosophy at the limit. They are not afraid to take on the sacred cows of orthodoxy or the modish assumptions of the recent ‘turn to religion’ in continental thinking. Fascinating new insights into the modern canon sit alongside adventurous forays into cutting edge speculative philosophy and non-philosophy (the editors’ introduction is worth the admission price alone). Demanding, provocative and groundbreaking, this is required reading for anyone who wants to know what matters in philosophy of religion today.” – Steven Shakespeare, Lecturer in Philosophy, Liverpool Hope University and Co-Facilitator of the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-03-01,Hal H. Hargreaves,Nameless God,Hardback,978-1-4438-2707-2,39.99,"Names play pivotal roles in unlocking early Christianity and are interpreted to reveal diverse theological positions. Just how much influence those names wielded cannot be overstated. It triggers this author to suggest the option of a nameless god. The book can be a primer for the person interested in objective observations and willing to consider plausible implications—over orthodoxy. Candor and tough decisions dominate this effort. A fresh view of agnostic thought emerges that is positive and helpful. ","“By far the most comprehensive and penetrating study of the many, sometimes contradictory, depictions of Jesus. Hargreaves assiduously combs the literature, providing penetrating insights into theology, ethnic values and the very course of Christianity. I know of no other work to match it. To discover the meaning of the book’s title, you'll have to read it.” —Charles Y. Glock, Professor Emeritus, University of California Berkeley; former President, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion; co-author of Religion and Society in Tension and Christian Beliefs and Anti-Semitism “A philosopher goes on a quest for the Jesus of the early Christians. In this intensive and insightful study of the names given to Jesus in early Christian writings, both canonical and non-canonical, two common characteristics are identified—wide diversity and a drive toward deification. A must-read for all interested in Christian beginnings.” —Charles P. Anderson, Associate Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia “In an era of religious skepticism, Nameless God is a timely contribution. Students of the New Testament, whether evangelical or ‘mainline’ will find this a beautifully written ‘catch-up’ book for those who haven’t seriously studied the New Testament since seminary. This reverent agnostic’s deep faith illuminates the latest evidence uncontaminated by Christian triumphalism in our new globalized world.” —Stanley Thomas, Affiliate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Idaho (retired) ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-03-03,Ian Leask,Being Reconfigured,Hardback,978-1-4438-2551-1,34.99,"Being Reconfigured presents some of the most brilliant and audacious theses in recent phenomenological research. Challenging so much post-Heideggerian doxa, it argues against contemporary phenomenology’s denegation of Being, but suggests, as well, that phenomenology itself can provide a viable and fruitful alternative to this impasse. Specifically, Being Reconfigured delineates the source of phenomenology’s ‘refusal’ of Being, in Husserl; the main strands it demonstrates, in Marion and Levinas; and the fundamental problems its entails—in Marion, the necessary retention of a ‘metaphysical’ subject, and in Levinas, the necessary revival of Kantian dualisms and diremptions. Beyond this critical survey, however, Leask also provides an alternative perspective, through a reassessment of Edith Stein’s ‘generous ontology.’ This reassessment involves: delineating Stein’s Patristic and Scholastic sources; amplifying her suggestions, through the work of Michel Henry, Merleau-Ponty and Levinas himself; and demonstrating the contemporary significance of Stein’s phenomenology of Being-sustained and Being-safe(ty). By considering Being in these Steinian terms of support, safety and charity, Leask concludes, we might begin to overcome the difficulties described in the book’s earlier chapters—and to do so by radically reassessing the ‘nature’ of the Being that we take for granted. ","“In a sweeping tour of contemporary phenomenology, Ian Leask offers an erudite and philosophically imaginative interrogation of the current phenomenological attempt to do without or go beyond Being. Leask argues that Being is not to be overcome by givenness but reconceived or reconfigured as sustaining generosity. A masterful account for anyone working in phenomenology today.” —John D. Caputo, Syracuse University, USA “[Ian Leask’s] project seems to me as interesting and important as any in contemporary philosophy.” —Alasdair MacIntyre, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA “While analytical philosophy is often accused of a ‘flight from being,’ Ian Leask lays the same accusation against much contemporary phenomenology as well. He plays a masterful game of philosophical chess, in which many exalted figures are toppled or undergo a radical change of position. Building on Edith Stein’s notion of being as ‘sustentive,’ he shows how a classical understanding of the inherent goodness of being, thus retrieved in the key of phenomenology, can give new bearings to the thought of Michel Henry, Merleau-Ponty and even Levinas. At first sharply critical, Leask reveals in the end a capacious sympathy for all the thinkers studied, as if himself enacting ‘the charity of being.’” —Joseph S. O’Leary, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-03-03,David Lewin,Technology and the Philosophy of Religion,Hardback,978-1-4438-2513-9,39.99,"The last one hundred years has seen unimaginable technological progress transforming every aspect of human life. Yet we seem unable to shake a profound unease with the direction of modern technology and its ideological siblings, global capitalism and massive consumption. Philosophers such as Marcuse, Borgmann and especially Heidegger, have developed important analyses of technological society, however in this book David Lewin argues that their ideas have remained limited either by their secular context, or by the narrow conception of religion that they do allow. This study guides the reader along the newly formed paths of the philosophy of technology, arguing that where those paths come to an abrupt end, a religious discourse is needed to articulate the ultimate concerns that drive technological action. It calls for a meditation on the central insight of many religious traditions that, in an ultimate sense, we ‘know not what we do.’ To acknowledge that we know not what we do is the first step towards a theology of technology that draws upon insights from the mystical theological tradition, as well as from recent developments in the continental philosophy of religion. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-04-01,Timo Airaksinen and Bertil Belfrage,Berkeley’s Lasting Legacy: 300 Years Later,Hardback,978-1-4438-2726-3,44.99,"George Berkeley (1685–1753) is, with John Locke and David Hume, one of the three major figures in the British empiricist school of philosophy. He has been the centre of much attention recently and his philosophical profile has gradually changed. In the 20th century he was almost exclusively known for his denial of the existence of matter (as this term was defined in those days), but today it is no longer reasonable to confine an account of Berkeley to the challenging philosophical inventions that he published when he was a young fellow at Trinity College in Dublin. This is a welcome trend. It shows Berkeley as a contributor not only to epistemology, metaphysics and moral and social philosophy, but also to a wide range of subjects including mathematics, philosophy of science, empirical psychology, political economy and monetary policy. The present collection aims at meeting this new trend by presenting a broad and comprehensive picture of Berkeley’s works in their historical context. The contributors are some of the finest international experts in the field. The editors hope that this collection will show George Berkeley as he was: a wide-ranging, widely influential and courageous philosophical innovator. This volume has been published to celebrate the 300th anniversary of George Berkeley’s Principles. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-04-01,Manas Roy,Concertölogy: The New Philosophy,Hardback,978-1-4438-2856-7,34.99,"While Derrida deconstructed Husserlian phenomenology, he undertook phenomena as a constructed form of appearance; but it’s not in all the case that all appearance may have or presents the same pheno/photö-being-in-the-world form with respect to space-time-causation-absolute and photö-reflection/refraction relativity. It is found that necessity to introduce Absolute’s supremeness & the effects of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity as are the major determining factor-tools towards locating the “Existentio Phenomenologistic” loca-standi of any phenomenal reality of the universe. One may receive ‘photövita’ from a ‘phenomena’ in the form of Epoché-L reflective/refractive ‘pheno-drops’; One may receive ‘Photö-drops’ in the form of ‘Photö-syntagmatics’ or ‘Photö-vishown’ but can’t catch ‘photö’ atoms. It’s uncertain & impossible like Heisenberg’s atomic principle; as both the atomic criterias (photo and photö) fall under the same universal principle though varies from different disciplines. This way ‘Concertölogy’ launches as: The systematic study about photö-atomic determination of ‘Phenomenology’ by Déconcert Theory; presenting Pheno→Photö→Word→Art concertö with their respective-subjective value(s). ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-04-01,Lisa Pavlik-Malone,Dolls & Clowns & Things: Essays for a Symbolic Self,Hardback,978-1-4438-2724-9,34.99,"In this volume, the author explores the symbolic relationship between the self and the object through a potentially illuminating lense—cognition. From this perspective, objects in general, and dolls in particular, are studied as vehicles through which cognitive processes adapt and re-adapt themselves, in various and specific ways, to transform one’s understanding of Self as an ongoing, overarching imaginative endeavor. Although at least some aspects of thought and emotion can and do function consciously, both the “cognitive conscious” as well as the “cognitive unconscious” are interpreted as fundamental to the creation of Self. Here, the author explores three ways in which “Self” may be “nurtured” or developed by the mind: one, as my physical object, in which the “thing” becomes one’s “own” meaningful possession while retaining all the aspects of its physical nature; two, as my objectified being, in which the original physical nature of the “thing” includes its being alive, but it has since lost this phenomenological quality in a sense, as one’s “own” personal meaning has come to imbue it; and three, as my personified idea, in which the individual mind conjures up the object itself, while ascribing to it human qualities in various aspects that, in the mind of the creator at least, emanate from the object as fundamental to what it is. In each sense, the conception of Self through the object is considered as a mechanistically intricate, personally invaluable mental attribute. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-04-01,Marian F. Sia and Santiago Sia,From Question to Quest: Literary-Philosophical Enquiries into the Challenges of Life,Paperback,978-1-4438-2836-9,19.99,"In facing up to life and its challenges, questions inevitably arise. Different situations provoke specific questions—mostly trivial but frequently fundamental—always seeking some kind of answer. While the transition from question to quest is a rather natural one for human beings and the need for answers is a serious human demand, the quest itself is significant, precisely because it is a human task. This book offers a number of literary-philosophical enquiries into these challenges of life. But it is the one set of quests—stimulated, deepened and widened by literature and philosophy as well as developed in a literary and philosophical way. Among the topics covered are: the search for meaning in life, the quest for wisdom, the aim of moral striving, the need for community life, the importance of relationships, the challenge of suffering, the desire for deliverance, and the longing for immortality. ","“This is truly a work of imaginative thinking. It confronts the great questions in a world in which we are all too often content with avoiding them in our obsession with particularity. It listens attentively to the great masters of philosophy and literature which have gone before, but knows that we can never truly think until we have summoned the courage to think for ourselves ... I really enjoyed reading this book!” —Prof David Jasper, Professor of Literature and Theology, University of Glasgow; Changyang Chair Professor, Renmin University of China “This book is a perfect illustration of Whitehead’s famous metaphor of the flight of an aeroplane. The authors start from the ground of solid observation of, and literary insights into, the challenges of everyday life; then they take a flight into the thin air of speculative thinking, using the resources of philosophy. And then, again, they land for a renewed and fresh interpretation of thorny issues, including suffering, death and immortality. An inspiring quest and a splendid work!” —Prof Jan Van der Veken, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-04-01,Ridwanul Hoque,Judicial Activism in Bangladesh: A Golden Mean Approach,Hardback,978-1-4438-2733-1,44.99,"This book critically examines the evolving global trend of judicial activism with particular reference to Bangladesh. It constructs judicial activism as a golden-mean adjudicative technology, standing between excessive judicial assertion and unacceptable judicial passivity that may leave injustices un-redressed. It argues that judicial balancing between over-activism and meek administration of justice should essentially be predicated upon domestic conditions, and the needs and fundamental public values of the judges’ respective society. Providing cross-jurisdictional empirical evidence, the study demonstrates that judicial activism, steered towards improving justice and grounded in one’s societal specificities, can be exercised in a morally and legally legitimate form and without rupturing the balance of powers among the state organs. This study has sought to displace the myth of judicial activism as constitutional transgression by “unelected” judges, arguing that judicial activism is quite different from excessivism. It is argued and shown that a particular judge or judiciary turns out to be activist when other public functionaries avoid or breach their constitutional responsibilities and thus generate injustice and inequality. The study treats judicial activism as the conscientious exposition of constitutional norms and enforcement of public duties of those in positions of power. The study assesses whether Bangladeshi judges have been striking the correct balance between over-activism and injudicious passivity. Broadly, the present book reveals judicial under-activism in Bangladesh and offers insights into causes for this. It is argued that the existing milieu of socio-political injustices and over-balance of constitutional powers in Bangladesh calls for increased judicial intervention and guidance, of course in a balanced and pragmatic manner, which is critical for good governance and social justice. “Writing about judicial activism easily gets shackled by fussy and pedestrian debates about what judges may or may not do as unelected agents of governance. The book . . . goes much beyond such reductionist pedestrianisation of law, for it courageously lifts the debate into the skies of global legal realism. The analysis perceptively addresses bottlenecks of justice, identifying shackles and mental blocks in our own minds against activising concerns for justice for the common citizen.” —Prof Werner Menski (Foreword) ","The book under review offers some useful insights on the subject. -The Commonwealth Lawyer Vol.20, August 2011 ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-05-01,John Matthews and David Torevell,A Life of Ethics and Performance,Hardback,978-1-4438-2871-0,34.99,"Ethics is, in an important sense, a matter of ‘being good’ but it is also a question about how to live a ‘good life’. This book's emphasis on the theatrical and performative and their relationship to ethics, highlights that being good is, a matter of acting good and that acting good is a question of performing (or not-performing) certain roles and duties. This book surveys the most recent work in the field of ethics and performance, organizing this research through the metaphor of ‘the good life’. Each chapter explores a question about what it means to ‘act good’ at a different point in life and thus the book moves from natality to fatality, and beyond in its meditation on the relationship between performance and life itself. In this, it offers an important contribution to the contemporary debate about the relationship between ethics, theatre and performance studies. ","“Ethics meets performance in a highly imaginative and innovative way here. This is a set of very stimulating and captivating essays and the book engages with you on every level right to the last page. New questions are being explored; a new discipline is emerging. This is a book that changes the way you look at the world.” —Dr. Ian Markham, Professor of Theology and Ethics and President of Virginia Theological Seminary, USA ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-05-01,Sofia de Melo Araújo and Fátima Vieira,"Iris Murdoch, Philosopher Meets Novelist",Hardback,978-1-4438-2883-3,34.99,"Iris Murdoch, Philosopher Meets Novelist aims to gather some of the world’s present experts on Iris Murdoch, in an effort to promote dialogue between philosophy and literature. This is due not only to the nature of Iris Murdoch’s work itself, but also to our belief that within Humanistic Studies there is a constant need for breaking down disciplinarian barriers and reaching a deeper, fuller awareness of human thinking. Thus, the book brings together scholars from a variety of fields and places—Brazil, England, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Taiwan, and the United States—and testifies to the interest that the work of Murdoch continues to inspire. The book is divided into two major sections: Part A, Reading Philosophies in Literature, includes articles focusing on Iris Murdoch’s philosophical concerns and their general influence in her work; Part B, Reading Literature through Philosophy, is intended as a sort of application ground, a series of case-studies wherein authors depart from novels to retrieve the underlying philosophical thinking. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-05-01,K. A. Beville,Preaching Christ in a Postmodern Culture,Paperback,978-1-4438-2881-9,24.99,"Starting with some observations relating to shifts in ecclesiology and identifying them as a move beyond contextualization to syncretism this work goes on to assess the feasibility of preaching in a postmodern culture which rejects both the idea of absolute truth and authority used as power. It traces the historical and philosophical development of postmodernism. The Enlightenment project is deemed to have failed and Christianity is perceived as an oppressive metanarrative. In a world that is becoming increasingly sceptical and where preaching practitioners are becoming disillusioned this book offers some guidelines about preaching to postmoderns. In a relational age rationality is impotent, but the author distinguishes between authoritative and authoritarian preaching allowing hope for the survival of the homiletic task. Humility is presented as preferable to certitude and persuasion is redefined. The author suggests using an inductive mode of communication as a means of engaging postmodern listeners. He signposts a way forward in the labyrinthine complexity of the new paradigm and demonstrates that the homiletic task is still feasible. Thus this book will be of interest to teachers and students of theology as well as pastors desiring to develop a new apologetic strategy. ","“Kieran Beville discusses the powerful wind shift of Postmodernism, the subtle ways it is affecting society and how preachers must reset their sails to become effective. In this scholarly primer the author engages with philosophers and the leading homileticians of the day. His approach is succinct without getting bogged down or becoming superficial. Dr Beville’s book provides clear and useful handles for understanding the elusive nature of postmodernity. He writes chiefly for teachers and students of the art of preaching in western societies yet this is a practical book that will encourage all those engaged in preaching and other forms of Christian communication. Preachers who ignore the urgent challenge of this book do so at their own peril and at the risk of talking to themselves in the stale backwater of irrelevance.” —Dr Geoff Pound, Theologians Without Borders “Kieran Beville’s Preaching Christ in a Postmodern Culture is an extremely helpful analysis of the crisis that has overtaken preaching with the emergence of postmodernity in western culture. He rightly demonstrates that a full-blown embrace by the church of the postmodern critique of past ways of communicating the gospel, in particular, the traditional emphasis on preaching, is a sure path to theological and ecclesial disaster. On the other hand, he rightly points out that it is not at all helpful for the church to be sullen and reactionary at this turn of events in western culture, trying to live in some past ‘golden age’ when things were done right! Beville guides the reader through this modern—or should one say postmodern!—Scylla and Charybdis and provides a helpful template for preaching that takes due cognizance of the new cultural paradigm and that also emphasizes the vital importance of clear communication of the best news a human being can hear. Highly recommended.” —Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin, Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky; and Research Professor of Irish Baptist College, Constituent College of Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-05-01,Frederic Will,"Time, Accounts, Surplus Meaning: Settings of the Theophanic",Hardback,978-1-4438-2890-1,44.99,"This book harvests the author’s work, over several decades, on narrative and time, the place of imagination in conceptual thinking, and the underlying nature of historical accounts. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-06-01,John Murungi,African Musical Aesthetics,Hardback,978-1-4438-2927-4,39.99,"In the West, philosophy is generally confined to the domain of the intellect, and music to the domain of the emotion. This book makes either domain the location for the other. African musical aesthetics constitutes this location, and has its home in it. Moreover, since the separation of the domain of the intellect and the domain of emotion represents a bifurcation of what it is to be a human being, and by making either domain the location of the other, what African musical aesthetics accomplishes is the affirmation of a unified sense of what it is to be a human being. Accordingly, the unity of philosophy and music give rises to a unified sense of being human. It is to such unity that African musical aesthetics takes us. For African musical aesthetics to accomplish this task, this book challenges the conventional Western understanding of philosophy—an understanding that projects Africa as devoid of philosophy. It is this projection that pervaded Africa during the colonial period, and it is the projection that is challenged in African philosophy. From an African philosophical perspective African musical aesthetics turns out to be an emancipatory process that seeks to affirm the humanity of Africans but also a process that seeks to affirm common humanity. Music is not solely a matter of audiology, what is played, or what one dances to. It has its elemental task in calling our attention to what we are as human beings. In so far as it is sensuous, it constitutes us as members of the sensible world, and links us intrinsically to all that is sensuous. It is more than humanism. Music registers us as members of nature. It is nature naturing. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-06-01,Michael Tawa,Agencies of the Frame: Tectonic Strategies in Cinema and Architecture,Paperback,978-1-4438-2942-7,24.99,"Agencies of the Frame: Tectonic Strategies in Cinema and Architecture aims to explore parallel approaches to the conceptualisation and composition of place, space, time, materiality and narrative in cinematographic and architectural practices. Beyond drawing useful implications for design, the book investigates a range of themes to mobilise a reconsideration of cinema and architecture as non-representational practices. It suggests that films and buildings can be read and designed as assemblages not directed to the formal expression of meaning, but to the framing of strategic and enabling conditions of emergent sense, realised within the tectonic and material conditions of the cinematic and the architectural as such. Succinct analyses of precedents in film, music, painting and architecture are used to foreground tectonic and compositional characteristics related to spatiality, temporality and narrative that are transferable across disciplines and practices. The thematic framework of the book engages theoretical material by Heidegger, Simondon, Deleuze, Nancy, Agamben and Stiegler. Classical modernist and postmodernist films by Dreyer, Antonioni, Hitchcock, Godard, Paradjanov, Tarkovski, Herzog, Lynch and Heneke are analysed side by side with important traditional, modernist and contemporary buildings, including works by Corbusier, Scarpa, Lewerentz, Zumthor and Markli. Illustrated with drawings and photographs by the author, this book should be of interest to practitioners and students of art, design, cinema and the built environment who wish to expand the creative scope and resonance of their work. ","“In this elegant, erudite work, Michael Tawa traces the points of intersection and difference between architecture and cinema, touching on the materiality of space, time, light and sound – how they are experienced, held in our memories, and reactivated. With great sensitivity and originality Professor Tawa draws on a range of theoretical perspectives offered by Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida and Nancy, amongst others, putting them to work in his analysis of the built environment and cinema. Arguing that it is often the more discordant elements between disciplines that produce the most productive resonances, the reader is invited to imagine possibilities for enacting new opportunities for thinking, experiencing and making. It is for this reason that Agencies of the Frame: Tectonic Strategies in Cinema and Architecture, provides such a valuable resource for emerging and established artists, architects and filmmakers, as well as a broader, critically engaged, reading audience.” – Dr Elizabeth Presa, Head of The Centre for Ideas, Victoria College of Art, The University of Melbourne “From my own philosophical perspective, Michael Tawa’s work presents a double interest which at the same time situates it at the heart of our fin de siècle contemporary theory: 1) On the one hand, an interest at the level of sense (sense and not meaning), which constitutes, as we know, an acute question for our late modernity threatened by nihilism (or the negation of sense): by proposing the project of a ‘design lexicon’ which goes beyond all technical or thematic dictionaries, he aims to renew and displace the entire field of architectural reflection, firstly by the choice of terms, then by the treatment of their semantic, etymological, evocative or suggestive values. . . . 2) On the other hand, an interest as the question of being-in-common, that is to say the question of pre-political, pre-social plurality (or else beyond the social and political maybe) that makes of us (human beings, but also all beings) beings-with as essentially as they are, each one and in groups, singular beings. . . . Hence the double form of this research – significance of design and design of place, questions of place for sense – engages a resolutely active and practical thinking, a philosophy in action of design as that which traces sense or possibilities of sense. This thinking, which it seems to me takes up again the most fundamental vocation of architecture, appears perfectly adapted to the formation of architects, urbanists and landscape architects. . . . Michael Tawa rests his work on very solid and broad knowledge of the great contemporary philosophical currents, as well as the artistic and ethical givens and sensibilities of a world in whose diversity he moves with great ease of discourse and design, engaging concepts, words, images or tonalities from all sorts of traditions and cultural settings.” – Jean-Luc Nancy, Philosopher “Michael Tawa’s writing moves between architecture and film, producing unexpected resonances in the reader. This is a book for creative designers, who will find themselves absorbed in arguments and informed by erudition, but the real point of the reading will be for the effect it will have on the reader's world. Things that passed unnoticed will come into focus. By dwelling on acutely observed moments in films and buildings, Tawa evokes the special qualities that make them memorable, and shows their rapports with one another. Buildings house everyday activities, and films often show us things that are not in themselves remarkable, but with careful juxtaposition, a memory or a shadow, dripping water or brute stone can evoke a sense of something much more deeply interfused. One comes away from the text wanting to act on intuitions that were previously dormant, but which have been gently roused and turn out to have a life of their own.” – Andrew Ballantyne, Professor of Architecture, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-06-01,John N. Gaston and W. Creighton Peden,Edward Scribner Ames’ Unpublished Manuscripts,Hardback,978-1-4438-2932-8,39.99,"Edward Scribner Ames (1870–1958) was a minister in the Christian Church, a.k.a. Disciples of Christ. He served as minister of the Hyde Park Christian Church from 1900 to l940. Having received his undergraduate degree from Drake College, BD and two years towards a doctorate at Yale University, he completed a PhD in philosophy in 1895 with John Dewey as chair of the department of philosophy at the University of Chicago. After teaching at Butler College for three years, he returned to Hyde Park Church and became a part time teacher in philosophy at the University of Chicago. Eventually Ames taught more and more and became chair of the department. At the University of Chicago he also became the founder of Disciples Divinity House, for which he served as Dean until 1945. Ames is significant as a philosopher who adapted Christianity to the philosophy of pragmatism and the world of modern science. Ames’ hundreds of publications are held at the Disciples Divinity House at the University of Chicago, with the works in this volume being his unpublished manuscripts. In these lectures Ames devotes five lectures to explaining Christianity in terms of pragmatism to Disciples ministers. In other lectures he focuses on the philosophy of John Locke and its impact of the development of the Christian Church. Ames also developed a report for the Commission for the Restudy of the Disciples, The Philosophical Background on Disciples. In other ministerial lectures he presented a series of four lectures on The Reasonableness of Christianity. Also included are his alumni lecture at Yale Divinity in 1932 titled Imagery and Meaning in Religious Ideas; the Gates Memorial Lectures at Grinnell College titled This Human Life; a lecture at Northwestern University on The Will to Believe; and four lectures at the Pastors’ Institute in 1938 on When Science Comes to Religion. Ames addressed the Pastors’ Institute again in 1939 in four lectures on the Religious Implications of John Dewey’s Philosophy. ","“E. S. Ames was one of the most influential scholars in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the first half of the 20th century. Revisiting his adaptation of Christianity in light of modern science and pragmatic philosophy provides a valuable opportunity for Disciple theologians to examine an important trajectory of our intellectual heritage as we struggle to construct our postmodern identity. The publication of Ames' unpublished manuscripts, including his addresses to ministers, will enable scholars especially to better understand his humanism a la John Dewey’s thought.” —Jeniffer G. Jesse, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Truman State University, USA “Scholars affiliated with the University of Chicago in the early 20th century played major roles in developing empirical, pragmatic theologies that could hold their own in academic circles. Edward Scribner Ames was a star among those stars. Creighton Peden once again enriches our knowledge of this current of religious modernity. Accompanying his intellectual biography of Ames comes this publication of all of Ames’ unpublished manuscripts. These tools will not only serve future historians but they just might convince more theologians to keep alive this daring form of Christian survival.” —Robert B. Tapp, Professor Emeritus of Humanities, Religious Studies, and South Asian Studies, University of Minnesota and Dean & Faculty Chair Emeritus, The Humanist Institute, New York City “One of the central classical pragmatists is finally receiving his rightful attention. Ames was not only a creative philosopher alongside Dewey and Mead at Chicago, but he also was a psychologist and sociologist of religion who understood the religious life intimately. An amazing life indeed! He tireless did it all—as a university professor, minister of the University Church of Disciples of Christ, founder of the Disciples of Christ's Campbell Institute, and long-time dean of the Disciples Divinity House. Ames was a powerful humanistic voice in the liberal religious world of his day. This volume's superb collection of Ames's most significant and vibrant writings eloquently and persuasively speak to the needs of our own times today.” —John R. Shook, author of The Companion to Pragmatism, professor at University at Buffalo “E. S. Ames was one of the most influential scholars in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the first half of the 20th century. Revisiting his adaptation of Christianity in light of modern science and pragmatic philosophy provides a valuable opportunity for Disciple theologians to examine an important trajectory of our intellectual heritage as we struggle to construct our postmodern identity. The publication of Ames' unpublished manuscripts, including his addresses to ministers, will enable scholars especially to better understand his humanism a la John Dewey's thought.” —Jennifer Jesse, Associate Professor, Truman University “Edward Scribner Ames (1870-1958)—philosopher, minister, educator—was among the most creative early advocates for extending the pragmatic philosophy of William James and John Dewey into theology and philosophy of religion. During a long and varied career, Ames taught philosophy at the University of Chicago, served as minister of Hyde Park (later University) Church of the Disciples of Christ, and was dean of the Disciples Divinity House, affiliated with the University of Chicago. In this volume, Creighton Peden retrieves and interprets unpublished manuscripts that cast new light on Ames’s life and pragmatic philosophy of religion.” —W. Clark Gilpin, The University of Chicago Divinity School ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-06-01,James Kusch,"Knowledge, Differences and Identity in the Time of Globalization: Institutional Discourse and Practices",Hardback,978-1-4438-2936-6,44.99,"The discourse of globalization that pertains to higher education reform is troubling. The first troubling thing about much of the discourse that concerns globalization is that it most often does not name a human subject. We propose that globalization discourse should be written for and directed towards human beings or students. The second troubling thing about the discourse of globalization is the way that it antagonizes and marginalizes who that missing subject might be. The two relationships form the themes of this book. The nature and logic of discourse about globalization expresses a social rationality that serves as a precondition to constructing relevant meanings. The way that we conceive or obscure the subject produces a condition or position where those whom are the subject of the discourse must indeed await its effects—who is the pertinent policy about? Or, for whom is policy intended? Much policy discourse holds consequences for the way in which outcomes of policies are understood or explained in the social milieu where policies are enacted. The same discourse constructs and deconstructs identities and, as we will see, the language of reform in fact antagonizes and marginalizes students by virtue of a particular vagueness in the discourse and symbols of the discourse. What is at issue in the discourse of globalization is the character and logic of collective identities. How then to relate students to the cluster of features that comprise globalization? ","“Knowledge, Differences and Identity in the Time of Globalization: Institutional Discourse and Practices, edited by Jim Kusch, offers students of globalization an understanding of the meaning of the term for educational policy studies focusing on a series of themes that explore relations between knowledge, power culture, communication and history. It constitutes a wide ranging dialogue by seasoned scholars like Tom Popkewitz and Carl Grant based on a conference held in May 2009 at the Eastern Mediterranean University. The result is an impressive volume that records the ruminations by twelve international scholars on the nature of globalization and its complex and changing contours as an emerging discourse. This set of reflections on the changing nature of the globalized student provide fresh insights into questions of subjectivity and identity. It is an invaluable guide to the globalization debates in education and to its policy consequences.” —Michael A. Peters, University of Illinois, USA “The interlocking of the four components—power, culture, communication and history—elucidate the epistemological impact of the subject of Kusch’s book. The categorical distinction of education and information is a logical consequence of asking for a global educational feature. How much information does a society in the 21st century endure? The eastern and the western societies whose common trademark consists of the contradiction of the impediment and the promotion of migration of people at the same time.” —Dr Thomas Dittelbach, University of Bern, Switzerland “Curiously, globalization is a powerful discourse that is everywhere heard and yet filled with completely different local meaning. Drawing on critical theories and feminist studies, the authors discuss how decision-makers use ‘globalization’ as the absent Other or, in the case of PISA and international league tables, as the international statistical mean to advance their own local policy agendas. This is a book with sharp analyses and thought-provoking ideas – highly recommended.” —Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Professor of Comparative and International Education, Columbia University, New York, USA ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-06-01,Maria Isabel Aldinhas Ferreira,On Meaning: Individuation and Identity—The Definition of a World View,Hardback,978-1-4438-2925-0,39.99,"Meaning, the complex phenomenon of individuation and the definition of identity are the core theme of this work. Grounded on a theoretical framework that gives particular emphasis to the semiotic process common to all forms of cognition, human cognition is conceived here as specific of organisms that, in the course of their interactions, produce symbolic forms, defining the specific physical, social and cultural environments in which they evolve. Individuation, inherent to that semiotic process, is complex and double-sided. It involves, on one hand, the definition of semantic identities and their acknowledgment as world objects – naming; on the other hand, it comprehends the specific lexical and morphosyntactic strategies different languages have found to designate particular entities – referring. The definition of world objects and its symbolic translation presents variations from language to language. In the second part of the book, we define what we have called a “structure-motivated ontology” to represent how this symbolic translation is accomplished in English and European Portuguese. Plus, we try to show how the nature of this symbolic translation affects structural realisation, namely the individuation of reference and the construal of “one-off referring” expressions. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-07-01,Jean-Pierre Boulé and Benedict O’Donohoe,"Jean-Paul Sartre: Mind and Body, Word and Deed",Hardback,978-1-4438-2949-6,39.99,"Jean-Paul Sartre: Mind and Body, Word and Deed celebrates Sartre’s polyvalence with an examination of Sartrean philosophy, literature, and politics. In four distinct yet related sections, twelve scholars from three continents examine Sartre’s thought, writing and action over his long career. “Sartre and the Body” reappraises Sartre’s work in dialogue with other philosophers past and present, including Maine de Biran, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Didier Anzieu. “Sartre and Time” offers a first-hand account by Michel Contat of Sartre and Beauvoir working together, and a “philosophy in practice” analysis by François Noudelmann. “Ideology and Politics” uses Sartrean notions of commitment and engagement to address modern and contemporary politics, including insights into Castro, De Gaulle, Sarkozy and Obama. Finally, an important but neglected episode of Sartre’s life—the visit that he and Beauvoir made to Japan in 1966—is narrated with verve and humour by Professor Suzuki Michihiko, who first met Sartre during that visit and remained in touch subsequently. Taken together, these twelve chapters make a strong case for the continued relevance of Sartre today. ","“This is an impressive collection of essays by two of the UK’s most dedicated Sartre scholars. The questions of embodied consciousness and of words and/as actions are both timely and perennial; that is to say, urgent, in view of the rapid advances of neuroscience, and yet amongst the ‘universal’ issues that philosophy is constantly trying to come to terms with. This work represents a substantial contribution from Boulé and O’Donohoe.” —Christina Howells, Professor of French, Wadham College, Oxford ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-07-01,Wit Pietrzak,"Myth, Language and Tradition: A Study of Yeats, Stevens, and Eliot in the Context of Heidegger’s Search for Being",Hardback,978-1-4438-2947-2,44.99,"Myth, Language and Tradition is an in-depth study of three modernist poets: W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens and T. S. Eliot with regard to the concepts of myth, poetic language and tradition. These are analysed against the later philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Each part of the book is devoted to one poet and one of the abovementioned aspects; the conclusion seeks to consolidate the various ideas explored throughout the book and to propose a new reading of the literary modernism. The main objective of the book is to reconsider modernism in relation to the three poets so as to reveal that during the first half of the twentieth century a change took place, shifting the intellectual emphasis from thinking the world as finite to instigating a question at the root of reality. This transition is analysed on the basis of Heidegger’s search for Being and it is this key notion that allows us to reformulate the ideas of myth in Yeats, poetic language in Stevens and tradition in Eliot. Along with the macro-scale restructuration of modernist principles, a thorough re-reading of the three poets’ work is conducted with a view to indicating that the individual changes totalised into a grand effort of poetic dwelling. This book seeks to enter into a debate with the long-standing interpretations of modernism, offering a critical revaluation of both poetry and philosophy of the period in a joint project. The customary views on both areas are observed and noted but then the author seeks to lay focus on other possibilities to be considered when reading modernist poetry. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-07-01,Pär Segerdahl,Undisciplined Animals: Invitations to Animal Studies,Hardback,978-1-4438-2951-9,34.99,"Animal studies is not a discipline of its own, but emerged simultaneously within many disciplines, such as sociology, geography, biology, art history, education research, philosophy, anthropology, film studies, political science, and gender research. Animal studies stands for a transformed way of doing scholarly work, always through the lens of the human/animal relationship. If anything keeps the field together, it is the productive “incoherence” that it creates wherever it challenges human-centred modes of work. What does it mean to do animal studies? Due to the essential “undisciplinarity” of the field, a traditional textbook approach could not answer the question. Undisciplined Animals is a series of confessions: “this is how I and my basic outlook changed through the efforts of unruly animals, neither of us happily adapting to human-centred perspectives.” The hope is that readers will recognize the same productive tensions in their own work; that the book will help them use these tensions and not hide them as breaches of disciplinary rules. Undisciplined Animals is a collection of invitations to animal studies, addressed to emerging scholars in a variety of fields who want to see how animal studies can vitalize work in their disciplines. The chapters are intersected by short interludes that describe an experience, a notion, or a thought that secretly drives the author’s work. These interludes reveal animal studies to transgress not only disciplinary borders, but also borders between the academic and the personal. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-08-01,Brendan O’Donoghue,"A Poetics of Homecoming: Heidegger, Homelessness and the Homecoming Venture",Hardback,978-1-4438-2994-6,44.99,"This investigation addresses a pressing anxiety of our time – that of homelessness. Tersely stated, the philosophical significance of homelessness in its more modern context can be understood to emerge with Nietzsche and his discourse on nihilism, which signals the loss of the highest values hitherto. Diverging from Nietzsche, Heidegger interprets homelessness as a symptom of the oblivion of being. The purpose of the present enquiry is to rigorously confront humanity’s state of homelessness, and at the same time illumine the extent to which Heidegger’s thought engages with this pervasive phenomenon. In questioning the nature of homelessness, Heidegger’s preoccupations with nihilism and modern technology prove crucial. Moreover, his attempts to overcome or prepare for the overcoming of this state of homelessness are also of great import to the current investigation. Adorno and Lévinas offer scathing critiques of Heidegger’s thought as it relates to the motifs of homelessness, homecoming (Heimkunft) and the German Heimat, for they associate it with provincialism, paganism, and a pernicious form of politics. In providing these critiques they bring to light the risks involved in undertaking a homecoming venture, and they also show how a great thinker can err greatly. While acknowledging the importance of these criticisms, the present study reveals how Heidegger’s various discourses on homelessness and homecoming bear fruitful insights that can contribute not just to a Germanic sense of homecoming but to a sense of homecoming that humanity at large can relate to and be enriched by. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-08-01,Tiziana Andina,Arthur Danto: Philosopher of Pop ,Hardback,978-1-4438-3149-9,34.99,"“Arthur Danto is a philosopher with a system, whose much discussed aesthetic theory cannot be understood adequately without grasping how it is embedded in his analysis of action, historiography and knowledge. Although some Americans have written about his system, we have as yet too little comprehension of how it appears from the vantage point of Europe. This monograph by a gifted young Italian scholar, which will change that situation. [It] presents a remarkably original, highly sympathetic perspective, one that will surely influence debate in her native country, in the United States, and everywhere that Danto is now being read.” —David Carrier, Champney Family Professor, Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Institute of Art, USA “Tiziana Andina’s Arthur Danto: Philosopher of Pop, written in a friendly and enthusiastic style that is quite suitable to its subject, should do much to enliven debate about the main themes of Danto’s philosophy of art. Those themes are here, and for the first time, both viewed as a whole and placed in the context of Danto’s broader philosophical commitments, whose metaphysical, epistemological, psychological and linguistic underpinnings are made clear in Andina’s lucid text.” —Jerrold Levinson, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland, USA ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-08-01,"Carlo Cellucci, Emily Grosholz and Emiliano Ippoliti",Logic and Knowledge,Hardback,978-1-4438-3008-9,49.99,"The problematic relation between logic and knowledge has given rise to some of the most important works in the history of philosophy, from Books VI–VII of Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Prior and Posterior Analytics, to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Mill’s A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. It provides the title of an important collection of papers by Bertrand Russell (Logic and Knowledge. Essays, 1901–1950). However, it has remained an underdeveloped theme in the last century, because logic has been treated as separate from knowledge. This book does not hope to make up for a century-long absence of discussion. Rather, its ambition is to call attention to the theme and stimulating renewed reflection upon it. The book collects essays of leading figures in the field and it addresses the theme as a topic of current debate, or as a historical case study, or when appropriate as both. Each essay is followed by the comments of a younger discussant, in an attempt to transform what might otherwise appear as a monologue into an ongoing dialogue; each section begins with an historical essay and ends with an essay by one of the editors. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-08-01,Andrew Scott Crines,Michael Foot and the Labour Leadership,Hardback,978-1-4438-3159-8,39.99,"Michael Foot’s political career can simplistically be characterised by cataclysmic failures within the period between 1979 and 1983, culminating in Labour’s substantial electoral defeat. Developments within political discourse have since sought to perpetuate this characterisation by utilising the defeat as a justification for the subsequent modernisations. However, this analysis does not entirely appreciate the significance of Foot’s leadership. This book argues that far from being a disaster, Foot’s leadership in fact contributed to the survival of the Labour Party. Foot’s political education, political evolution, and experiences between him joining the Party in 1935 and the end of his ministerial career in 1979 enabled him to emerge as the unity candidate in opposition to the divisive potential of a Denis Healey or Tony Benn leadership. Foot’s support base included moderate social democrats and moderate left-wing MP’s as well as centrists who opposed radicals from both sides. This subverts the orthodox assumption of Foot’s election being indicative of a sudden and simplistic left-wing domination after 1979. This book will be of particular interest to those seeking to develop their knowledge of Michael Foot, the Labour Party and their ideological diversity. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-08-01,Bambang Sugiharto and Roy Voragen,Overlapping Territories: Asian Voices on Culture and Civilization,Hardback,978-1-4438-2999-1,34.99,"The post-Cold War situation has given way to a new and unprecedented constellation of global interrelations. The power constellation today is not only multi-polar, but rather, ‘chaotic’: its configuration keeps shifting and it is determined not simply by new emerging super powers, but also by any seemingly small events in non-linear modes of interaction. The interdependency between communities somehow makes significant changes unpredictable. Such an interdependent, yet chaotic, world order, in turn, raises new philosophical questions. Identity, culture and civilization cannot be understood anymore simply in terms of traditional categories. These categories are called into question through mutual interrogation and mutual enlargement of horizons, and this inevitably entails hybridization and pluralization. The Asian voices included in this book speak of recognition of and respect for the ‘otherness’, the other outside as well as inside. The writers mostly see globalization as well as their own cultural positions through dialogical imagination in which a Western philosophical framework is deployed to find out their Asian positions, and the reverse, the Asian reality is used to problematize the Western framework. Thereby this book attempts to shed light on the question of how we are to understand culture and civilization. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-09-01,Kenneth B. Newell,"A Theory of Literary Explication: Specifying a Relativistic Foundation in Epistemic Probability, Cognitive Science, and Second-Order Logic",Hardback,978-1-4438-3147-5,39.99,"This book presents current multidisciplinary research and theory from 17 different fields (most of them never before applied to literary explication) in order to provide (1) justification for the practice of a relative-probability type of explication as distinguished from interpretation, (2) a relativistic foundation for the preference of some explication(s) of a literary work over others, and thereby (3) a middle way between the postmodern pluralist view that a work has only an unlimited number of equally acceptable though different explications and the modern intentionalist view that it has only one acceptable explication (the author’s). Nine of the 17 fields are of primary relevance: critical theory, hermeneutics, probability theory, philosophy of science, second-order logic, and four fields of cognitive science (linguistics, epistemology, neuropsychology, and artificial intelligence). But the book also touches upon textual criticism, legal theory, measure theory, fuzzy logic, animal learning behavior, developmental psychology, evolutionary epistemology, and neurobiology. The book shows that those using a relative-probability type of explication on a literary work can achieve consensus because the healthy, adult human brain has an evolved, uniform, and probably innate ability to form relative-probability judgments and to form them in the practice of activities (like reading and explicating) that are not uniform and innate. Lastly, the book contributes to the scholarly areas of explication theory and practice, first, by providing a relativistic foundation for a craft (explication) that currently is not acknowledged to have any foundation but nonetheless continues and will continue to be practiced and, second, by presenting a means (relative epistemic probability) by which judging some explication(s) of a literary work to be more acceptable than others may be justified philosophically—an uncommon circumstance in this postmodern era in which philosophical justification of many beliefs and practices is thought to be untenable. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-10-01,Igor Ž. Žagar and Matejka Grgič,How to Do Things with Tense and Aspect: Performativity before Austin,Hardback,978-1-4438-3212-0,34.99,"Almost all verbs in Slovene (one of the least researched Slavic languages) have two aspectually different forms, the perfective (PF) and the imperfective (IF). But in institutional settings or settings strongly marked with social hierarchy, only the second, the imperfective form, is used by Slovene speakers in a performative sense. Why is that? And what, in fact, has a Slovene speaker said if (s)he has used the imperfective verb in “performative circumstances”? No doubt that (s)he may be in the process of accomplishing such an act. But at the same time, having the possibility of choosing between the PF and the IF form, (s)he may have also indicated that this act hasn’t been accomplished (yet): as long as we are only promising (IF), we have not really promised anything yet, and if we are only promising (IF), we cannot take anything as having been really promised. That was how Stanislav Škrabec, the 19th century Slovene linguist and the central figure of this book, saw the role of verbal aspect within language use. Being caught in such a dilemma, a question inevitably arises: how do we accomplish an act of promise (or any other performative act) in Slovene? That dilemma – whether to use the perfective or imperfective aspect when accomplishing performative acts – may seem more than artificial at first, but it was very much alive among Slovene linguists at the end of the 19th century. And it was that very dilemma that quite unexpectedly gave rise to the foundations of performativity in Slovene, half a century before Austin! In the present book, the authors try to shed light on this controversy that involved different Slovene scholars for about thirty years, and propose a delocutive hypothesis as a solution for the performative dilemma this controversy unveiled. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-10-01,Alexander Mitjashin,Physics and Metaphysics,Hardback,978-1-4438-3297-7,34.99,"The central thought of this book is that definite predictions of classical physics can be explained by mathematics of special relativity. The probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics is determined by peculiar mathematics which can only describe the quantum phenomena – this mathematics gives statistical explanations to these phenomena and no other explanations could in principle be given to them; as well, the phenomena of classical physics which are to be described definitely (but not in principle probabilistically) can be described this way only because, in its turn, it is determined by peculiar mathematics and – as it is argued in the book – this simple mathematics can be straightforwardly inferred from the special relativity theory. It is shown that these important results correspond to the approach accepted in modern physics due, in particular, to Bell’s inequalities and their tests. However, the author concentrates on the philosophical consequences that should be inferred from these physical results. Naturally, metaphysical views which can be congenial to this kind of physical picture of the world must agree with the concept of non-homogeneity. Such metaphysics was firstly exposed by the author in his work devoted to the non-linearity of natural language: The World and Language: The Ontology for Natural Language (Lanham: University Press of America, 2006). But one does not need to be familiar with this book in order to read Physics and Metaphysics; nor is it necessary for the reader to have any mathematical skill or serious knowledge in physics. This book will be of benefit to those interested in the fields of physics, quantum mechanics and mathematics. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-10-01,Michael Tawa,Theorising the Project: A Thematic Approach to Architectural Design,Hardback,978-1-4438-3296-0,39.99,"Theorising the Project aims to explore a thematic approach to architectural design. It conceptualises the design process in a general sense through seven key phases: developing a thematic framework and a line of inquiry to situate the project; investigating the project brief and mapping the project site to unravel potential themes and questions; situating technology as a formative condition for design; analysing precedents from the arts, literature and architecture to elaborate implications for design and considering representation as equally constitutive of the design undertaking. Key themes which are unpacked using extensive etymologies and metaphorical associations include theory, mapping, the makeshift, potentiality and agency. The concepts of assemblage and emergence are developed to contextualise the design process and architectural settings as enabling infrastructures for thinking and practice. The book contends that design is a matter of setting up strategic and productive thematic assemblages that are not directed to the translation or formal expression of meaning, but to the framing of strategic and enabling conditions for emergent sense realised within the existential and material conditions of architecture. Succinct analyses of precedents across several disciplines are used to foreground tectonic and compositional characteristics with adaptational capacity for space, time, materiality and architectural narrative. The thematic framework of the book engages theoretical material by Giorgio Agamben, Gilles Deleuze, Martin Heidegger, Francois Jullien, Manuel De Landa and Jean-Luc Nancy. Illustrated with drawings and photographs by the author, the book will be of interest to practitioners and students of art, design and the built environment who wish to expand the foundational premises for design, widen the creative scope of their practice and exploit the thematic and metaphorical capacities of their project work. ","“Michael Tawa’s scholarly theorising sweeps you along in a rush of text and thrills with its seat-of-the-pants ride. It is as if you are tapping the keyboard alongside him, no, inside him, experiencing the writing as it happens, a duet of differences, similarities and resonances that somehow tolerably adheres. Michael asserts that the book gained its voice phenomenologically, only through the circumstances of writing it, just as he argues for theorising. I have heard Michael speak many times, and I can hear him now, passionately, sensitively, insistently, even stridently at times, his words and thoughts swelling the page. While I am persuaded that this project has its own voice, it is Michael’s poietic practice, his making and producing of sense, that audibilises it. Certainly all that is dangerous, disconcerting, edgy, precipitant, incipient, insouciant, abstract and enigmatic in his theorising pervades the work’s revealings as, no doubt, is bound to happen in its multiple interpolations. There is intent here, but only to alert and prepare for future-possibles, not to telescope outcomes. Some might not at first fully engage the intensity of what is offered. No matter, time is patient. Like the best fiction, and even better non-fiction, not even at the last page does the ride stop. Almost callously, its momentum continues, prompting questions, ponderings, reflections. At least that happened for me, tensing my years of reading and teaching. Of course this is what Michael wants to eventually happen for everyone who tackles a project, and what he believes should happen. No preconceptions, linearities, singularities, normatives, clichés, just comprehensive preparation for multivalent themes, registers and states of mind to handle-when-ready the already-to-hand. And he helps this along by vast arrays of words and ideas, etymologies, examples, linkages, demonstrations and illuminating questions. While this book is mainly about architectural theorising, it suffuses projects of every kind. It is a great read on its own account, as much as about energising projects, and will be invaluable in teaching. For most benefit, Theorising the Project should be attended while strategically negotiating the distortions to its fabric likely caused by one’s inner and outer ruptions. The rare articulation, confidence, assurance and potency of Michael Tawa’s skill with words greatly assists such a working through.” —Dr Paul-Alan Johnson, Senior Visiting Fellow Faculty of the Built Environment, The University of New South Wales “Michael Tawa's Theorising the Project suggests ""considering architecture as a provisional and enabling infrastructure"", and offers a place for readership which nurtures reflection and thereby enables transformational thinking. This book is about how we build our relations to the world, and about how we discover and forge the terms with which we can describe, inscribe and prescribe those relations. Driven by a ""lexical fascination"" where words are valued for their phonic impact as much as their knotty etymologies, Tawa's work moves us and lets us move across an assemblage of densely interwoven chapters. It opens up immensely useful perspectives to anyone interested in the links between theory and practice, between conceptualisation and fabrication, whilst steering refreshingly clear of such dichotomies to entertain the subtler connections borne by sensuous experience and action. Equally refreshing is Tawa's discernment between thematic and programmatic complexity, his view of the place to be accorded to constant interrogations in the design process that are driven by yearnings and learnings, concepts and contexts, consilent and resilient approaches. If ""what I am is what I can bring to a project"", the proposed project of readership is wrought to host its subjects with all of their richly idiosyncratic concerns and leanings. Place as a ""conjugation of people and space"" is also the place of the page, where a specific confluence of different kinds of experience is here generously made accessible, and verbally meshed to others, through haunting evocations of geographical sites, scholarly citations, and incipient student visions. The perambulations and displacements, the ""conjugated discrepancies"" and ""scrambled expectations"" that condition insightful ways of approaching space and time, of being and/ in motion, are foregrounded by the quest to ""enable the emergent to show itself"", and to ""develop strategies to elaborate and articulate its implications"", as a new paradigm for design. Theorising the Project is a quietly, yet exuberantly extra-ordinary aide-mémoire, a mnemonic and perceptive instrument, for those of us seeking re-assurance from a fellow traveller as we design our own wayfaring through the materials and ideas of which our lives are made.” —Sally Jane Norman, Professor of Performance Technologies, Director, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex, United Kingdom “Consider Michael Tawa’s content and range, his framing and re-framing and we soon realise that we default to theory and other not-so-small acts of self justification whenever the going gets tough in architecture. Tawa has fashioned a carefully sequenced narrative. This is a re-writing book, a re-thinking volume. Not in the crass way of setting things straight, once again recalling the naivety of insight that catches us all off guard. Instead, Tawa invites us to test the very nature of ‘framing’ itself, whether via words, whorls or worlds. Writing the critical project has often become blurred with building the critical project and Tawa indicates why. Theorising the project has thus never been easy and is likely to be less so as we progress in a world of double-take which looks back at scaffolded theories and supporting histories that have operated – often unchallenged - for many decades in the architectural profession. Here, Tawa takes us through source and resource, in their widest sense. By loosening the formative thinking from which architectural design draws out its meaning, alibis and allegiances are thereby tested. Allegiances have always been questionable, of course, but elegantly disguised. Tawa shows how our first irritant must be the way we justify an architectural assembly, gesture or choice of material. Only then passing through this fatigue, these alibis, the reader – student, scholar or architect – is invited to understand how much of the critical support and writing in architecture over the last few decades has brilliantly missed the point of the actual use and abuse of theory. We frame, we re-frame; we source, we re-source; we theorise and we read deeply or then superficially, sometimes to fall fatigued. The helter skelter of semantics and semiotics that once held the last century to hostage become devices so common to us in offering projections of worlds we have already made and agreed with inside ourselves. Tawa debates this; he turns up the tarot card that reads – you have a future. Then he asks us to feel the edge, to read across life and architecture until we accept our own responsibility. What is theory for? Words, whorls, worlds? How many times has this question remained unasked whilst being written about extensively? The being in question is architecture itself. Tawa, in contest and elegance, takes us inside.” Professor Roger Connah, Associate Director Graduate Studies, Carleton university, Ottawa ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-11-01,Shlomo Giora Shoham,And Man Created God,Hardback,978-1-4438-3302-8,44.99,"And Man Created God presents a new theory of mytho-empiricism based on the mythological concepts of Claude Lévi-Strauss and the structuralism of Jeanne Piaget. The whole nature of mythogenes as the creative force linking history and transcendence is then elucidated. The corpus of myths in the books of Genesis and Exodus are presented in a new light and then compared with the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek mythologies to highlight the Judaic myths with the pagan contrast. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-11-01,Filip Ivanović,Dionysius the Areopagite between Orthodoxy and Heresy,Hardback,978-1-4438-3348-6,34.99,"Dionysius the Areopagite between Orthodoxy and Heresy aims to explore the thought of one of the most controversial characters of Christian history, Dionysius the Areopagite, and put it in a correct context, between pagan (namely Neoplatonic) philosophy on the one side, and Christian theology, on the other. In significant part, the book examines Dionysius’ Neoplatonic sources, but it also offers insights into the original points of his philosophy and theology, thus showing how he managed to achieve a masterful integration of pagan thought and newly revealed faith. The chapters of the book, taken together, try to offer a broad insight into the Areopagite’s thought, through examining not just his intellectual background and milieu, but also some of the crucial features of his work, such as notions of hierarchy, deification, apophatic and cataphatic theologies, icon, and others. This work is of a multidisciplinary character, since Dionysius’ thought has been studied from different points of view, so the contributions range from philosophy and theology to history and art history. Dionysius the Areopagite between Orthodoxy and Heresy is intended for both specialists and non-specialists. Apart from being a collection of specific studies, it can also serve as an introduction to the Areopagite’s thought, and will be useful to all those interested in late antique and early Christian philosophy and theology, patristics, and cultural studies in general. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-11-01,Barbara Gabriella Renzi and Giulio Napolitano,Evolutionary Analogies: Is the Process of Scientific Change Analogous to the Organic Change?,Hardback,978-1-4438-3354-7,34.99,"“Advocates of the evolutionary analogy claim that mechanisms governing scientific change are analogous to those at work in organic evolution – above all, natural selection. By referring to the works of the most influential proponents of evolutionary analogies (Toulmin, Campbell, Hull and, most notably, Kuhn) the authors discuss whether and to what extent their use of the analogy is appropriate. A careful and often illuminating perusal of the theoretical scope of the terms employed, as well as of the varying contexts within which the analogy is appealed to in contemporary debates, leads to the conclusion that such general theories of selective processes are either too sketchy or eventually not persuasive, if not altogether based on flawed views of evolutionary biology. By clarifying what is at stake, the analysis carried out in the book sheds new light on one of the dominant theories of scientific progress. It also invites criticism, of course – but that is the very fuel of philosophical confrontation.” – Stefano Gattei, IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca “This book presents a serious challenge to those, like David Hull, who seek to model scientific change as an evolutionary process. The authors point out that although there are similarities between the processes of scientific change and organic evolution, the dissimilarities present formidable difficulties to construing the relation as anything more than a weak analogy. Their argument employs what they call a ‘type hierarchical’ approach that promises to be a powerful tool for the classification of similarities between theories in all fields.” – Michael Bradie, Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University “This is a most interesting discussion of the analogy between biological and scientific change. Particularly commendable is the close attention paid to the thinking of the late David Hull and his pathbreaking work on this issue.” – Michael Ruse, History and Philosophy of Science, Florida State University ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-11-01,Oliver Thorndike,Rethinking Kant: Volume 3,Hardback,978-1-4438-3345-5,39.99,"The series Rethinking Kant bears witness to the richness and vitality of Kantian studies. The series offers an alternative publishing venue of the highest quality, attractive to scholars who want to reach a readership of specialists and non-specialist alike. The collection is unique in its kind, for it garners papers from a whole generation of Kantian thought, ranging from doctoral students and recent PhDs to well-established thinkers in the field. This is the third volume in the series. It contains papers from three regional study groups of the North American Kant Society, and thus takes the pulse of current Kantian scholarship. ","“This is an excellent collection of original essays on Kant’s philosophy, some by leading scholars, others by up-and-coming junior people. The essays cover a wide range of topics, from anthropology, ethics, and right, to metaphysics and epistemology. In addressing deep and controversial issues in Kant’s philosophy and in taking up recent debates in Kant scholarship, these essays not only convey a sharp picture of the state of the art in Kant scholarship, but indeed contribute to the ongoing process of ‘rethinking Kant’. No serious Kant scholar can afford to miss this volume.” – Marcus Willaschek, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany “Rethinking Kant: Volume 3 contains new essays by veteran Kant scholars and well-known philosophers as well as some impressive contributions by younger authors. Forging new connections between Kant’s early and late writings as well as between Kant and important predecessors such as Wolff and Baumgarten, this volume will be of particular interest to those who are concerned with the connection between the a priori and empirical (pure and impure) dimensions of Kant’s ambitious philosophical project.” – Robert B. Louden, President, North American Kant Society, University of Southern Maine, USA ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-11-01,Thorsten Botz-Bornstein,The Crisis of the Human Sciences: False Objectivity and the Decline of Creativity,Hardback,978-1-4438-3353-0,34.99,"Centralization and over-professionalization can lead to the disappearance of a critical environment capable of linking the human sciences to the “real world.” The authors of this volume suggest that the humanities need to operate in a concrete cultural environment able to influence procedures on a hic et nunc basis, and that they should not entirely depend on normative criteria whose function is often to hide ignorance behind a pretentious veil of value-neutral objectivity. In sociology, the growth of scientism has fragmented ethical categories and distorted discourse between our inner and outer selves, while philosophy is suffering from an empty professionalism current in many philosophy departments in industrialized and developing countries where boring, ahistorical, and nonpolitical exercises are justified through appeals to false excellence. In all branches of the humanities, absurd evaluation processes foster similar tendencies as they create a sterile atmosphere and prevent interdisciplinarity and creativity. Technicization of theory plays into the hands of technocrats. The authors offer a broad range of approaches and interpretations, reaching from philosophy of education to the re-evaluation of business models for universities. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-12-01,Vincent M. Colapietro,"Experience, Interpretation, and Community: Themes in John E. Smith’s Reconstruction of Philosophy",Hardback,978-1-4438-3366-0,39.99,"No philosopher in the second half of the twentieth century or the opening decade of the twenty-first did more to recover the voice of philosophy in the conversation of humankind than John Edwin Smith (1921–2009). From The Social Infinite (1950), his landmark study of Josiah Royce, to “Niebuhr’s Prophetic Voice” (2009), he has shown in compelling detail how philosophical reflection is relevant to contemporary life. Indeed, virtually all of the eventual developments within contemporary philosophy in recent decades worthy of our unqualified support (above all, the acknowledgment of history, the abiding importance of the religious dimension of human experience, the hermeneutic character of all our intellectual understandings, including those of experimental inquirers, the irreducibility of persons, the ubiquity of symbols, and the cutting edge of philosophical critique) were ones to which Smith was committed at the outset of his career. He not only anticipated these developments but also pointed the way forward beyond the stultifying impasses of so much contemporary thought. In particular, his conceptions of subjectivity, symbolization, interpretation, experience and philosophy itself provide invaluable resources for twisting free from our present impasses. The essays in this volume make the salience and implications of Smith’s writings on these and other topics manifest. The authors assembled here bear eloquent witness to the wit of the man no less than the depth of the philosopher from whom they learned how to take up the urgent task of philosophical reflection in a world riven by seemingly intractable conflicts and characterized by mutual misunderstanding. John E. Smith was a widely learned man; he was also a deeply wise one. Hence, it should be no surprise that he aids us in creating ways to address such conflicts and to counter such misunderstanding. ","“At a time when philosophy in America rendered itself irrelevant, John Smith led the revolt to take back its traditional role as wisdom for living. This volume of essays examines his thought and celebrates his achievement. The essays and the fine Introduction by the editor constitute a rich critical assessment of a subtle and persuasive thinker.” – John Lachs, Centennial Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University “John E. Smith’s voice was unique among American philosophers. Deeply attached to a vision of philosophy as an integral part of the human experience and deeply distrustful of technical reductionism, his writings and teachings on Dewey, Peirce, James, Whitehead, Royce, Tillich, and many others left indelible marks on his students and colleagues. In this collection of first-rate essays on a wide-range of topics, the spirit and scope of John E. Smith’s philosophy lives on.” – Seyla Benhabib, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University “This remarkable collection of essays honors the late philosopher John E. Smith in multiple ways, its authors supplying insightful comments about his work and legacy, but also extending those insights by thinking with Smith about the issues and thinkers that most preoccupied him. The result is an impressive volume that demands the attention of any scholar who cares about American philosophy, its history and prospects, or about a philosophy of religion that draws primarily upon pragmatist resources. The book is notable for its breadth of vision, as canonical figures like Peirce, James and Dewey, along with more frequently neglected philosophers like Royce, Whitehead and C. I. Lewis, all receive generous consideration here.” – Michael L. Raposa, Professor of Religious Studies and Philosophy of Religion, Lehigh University; Editor, American Journal of Theology and Philosophy ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-12-01,Gyula Klima and Alexander W. Hall,"Medieval Metaphysics, or is it ""Just Semantics""? (Volume 7: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics)",Hardback,978-1-4438-3375-2,34.99,"Medieval semantic theories develop out of Aristotle’s On Interpretation, in which he notes that “Spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, and written marks symbols of spoken sounds” (tr. J. L. Ackrill, OUP 1984). The medieval commentary tradition elaborates on Aristotle’s theory in light of various epistemological and metaphysical commitments, including those entailed by the doctrine of the transcendentals that emerges from the tradition in the writings of Philip the Chancellor (d. 1236). Transcendental attributes such as unity, truth and goodness (properties that figure into most if not all accounts of the transcendentals) characterize every being as such, and hence the doctrine of the transcendentals promised some knowledge of God. This hope, together with the general medieval consensus that the cognitive acts by which we grasp extra-mental entities are veridical (i.e., in most cases, these acts represent what the cognizing subject takes them to represent) encouraged medieval thinkers to devote considerable effort to discerning how concepts latch onto reality. Medieval Metaphysics, or Is It “Just Semantics”? follows these attempts as concerns the signification of theological discourse in general and Trinitarian semantics in particular, the proper object of the intellect, and what is signified through quidditative or essential definition. ","“The Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established itself as a major venue for the publication of high-quality original articles on medieval philosophy. Particularly welcome is its frequent practice of publishing papers in dialogue with each other. It exemplifies magnificently the ways in which medieval and contemporary philosophy can be brought into fruitful conversation.” – Richard Cross, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA “In the past ten years, the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established a unique presence in both philosophy and medieval studies. By providing a venue for the discussion and publication of original philosophical and historiographical studies on the metaphysical insights of medieval authors from a logical perspective, it has opened a heretofore unexploited and much welcome niche of research.” – Jorge J. E. Gracia, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA “It is my pleasure to recommend to you the nine volumes, thus far, of the Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. . . . By focusing on both logic and metaphysical themes, the articles often shed new light on themes and figures that often escaped the notice of previous scholarship. . . . The volumes are a treasure trove in a field that is once again enjoying a renewed interest with academe.” – Lloyd A. Newton, Benedictine College, Kansas, USA “The study of medieval philosophy is now flourishing as never before, and these volumes showcase the very best of that work. Among the contributors to these volumes are many of the leading figures in the field, and the topics under investigation are fundamental to philosophy.” – Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA “The Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics is an extremely important network for the study of medieval philosophy. . . . Every paper represents a significant contribution based on absolutely original research that meets a very high standard. All the papers actually promote insightful analysis of medieval texts and thought-provoking discussion of philosophical topics.” – Fabrizio Amerini, University of Parma, Italy ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-12-01,Gyula Klima and Alexander W. Hall,"Medieval Skepticism, and the Claim to Metaphysical Knowledge (Volume 6: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics)",Hardback,978-1-4438-3371-4,34.99,"Medieval Skepticism, and the Claim to Metaphysical Knowledge presents three sets of essays. The first is an exchange between Antoine Côté and Charles Bolyard over Siger of Brabant’s strategy to silence the skeptic by discriminating between nobler and lesser senses and grounding certitude in sense perceptions. Second is another scholarly exchange, between Rondo Keele and Jack Zupko, over what Keele describes as Walter Chatton’s attempt to discredit Ockhamist nominalism by means of both an ‘anti-razor’, employed by Chatton to prescribe ontological commitment, and an argument strategy based on iteration and infinite regress. The last group of essays explores issues that develop out of the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas. Joshua Hochschild defends several key positions of Thomistic metaphysics against Anthony Kenny’s criticism that Aquinas’s treatment of being is inadequate, incoherent or even sophistic. Similarly, David Twetten, after laying out Aquinas’s nine versions of the proof for the Real Distinction between essence and esse, suggests one way in which Aquinas could meet the Aristotelian’s formidable ‘Question-Begging Objection’. Lastly, Scott M. Williams contends that to preserve God’s perfect knowledge of individual material creatures, Aquinas must alter his account of the unintelligibility of prime matter in the individuation of material creatures. ","“The Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established itself as a major venue for the publication of high-quality original articles on medieval philosophy. Particularly welcome is its frequent practice of publishing papers in dialogue with each other. It exemplifies magnificently the ways in which medieval and contemporary philosophy can be brought into fruitful conversation.” – Richard Cross, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA “In the past ten years, the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established a unique presence in both philosophy and medieval studies. By providing a venue for the discussion and publication of original philosophical and historiographical studies on the metaphysical insights of medieval authors from a logical perspective, it has opened a heretofore unexploited and much welcome niche of research.” – Jorge J. E. Gracia, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA “It is my pleasure to recommend to you the nine volumes, thus far, of the Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. . . . By focusing on both logic and metaphysical themes, the articles often shed new light on themes and figures that often escaped the notice of previous scholarship. . . . The volumes are a treasure trove in a field that is once again enjoying a renewed interest with academe.” – Lloyd A. Newton, Benedictine College, Kansas, USA “The study of medieval philosophy is now flourishing as never before, and these volumes showcase the very best of that work. Among the contributors to these volumes are many of the leading figures in the field, and the topics under investigation are fundamental to philosophy.” – Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA “The Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics is an extremely important network for the study of medieval philosophy. . . . Every paper represents a significant contribution based on absolutely original research that meets a very high standard. All the papers actually promote insightful analysis of medieval texts and thought-provoking discussion of philosophical topics.” – Fabrizio Amerini, University of Parma, Italy ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-12-01,Gyula Klima and Alexander W. Hall,The Demonic Temptations of Medieval Nominalism (Volume 9: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics),Hardback,978-1-4438-3374-5,34.99,"This volume presents three sets of papers discussing the medieval problem of singular cognition, nominalist epistemology, and the metaphysics of the great medieval nominalist philosopher, John Buridan. The first group of essays concerns issues surrounding the possibility of singular cognition in light of the cognitive psychology of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, as well as the latter’s “argument from indifference” as developed by William Ockham to support his own, nominalist epistemology. However, Ockham’s epistemology, worked out in detail by John Buridan, seems to have implications concerning the possibility of “Demon Skepticism” (later popularized by Descartes), which in turn poses a threat to the consistency of the nominalist cognitive psychology in general, as discussed in the second group of essays. Finally, the third group of essays explores some intriguing, but “weird” implications of the nominalist approach to epistemology in the metaphysics of John Buridan. ","“The Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established itself as a major venue for the publication of high-quality original articles on medieval philosophy. Particularly welcome is its frequent practice of publishing papers in dialogue with each other. It exemplifies magnificently the ways in which medieval and contemporary philosophy can be brought into fruitful conversation.” – Richard Cross, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA “In the past ten years, the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established a unique presence in both philosophy and medieval studies. By providing a venue for the discussion and publication of original philosophical and historiographical studies on the metaphysical insights of medieval authors from a logical perspective, it has opened a heretofore unexploited and much welcome niche of research.” – Jorge J. E. Gracia, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA “It is my pleasure to recommend to you the nine volumes, thus far, of the Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. . . . By focusing on both logic and metaphysical themes, the articles often shed new light on themes and figures that often escaped the notice of previous scholarship. . . . The volumes are a treasure trove in a field that is once again enjoying a renewed interest with academe.” – Lloyd A. Newton, Benedictine College, Kansas, USA “The study of medieval philosophy is now flourishing as never before, and these volumes showcase the very best of that work. Among the contributors to these volumes are many of the leading figures in the field, and the topics under investigation are fundamental to philosophy.” – Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA “The Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics is an extremely important network for the study of medieval philosophy. . . . Every paper represents a significant contribution based on absolutely original research that meets a very high standard. All the papers actually promote insightful analysis of medieval texts and thought-provoking discussion of philosophical topics.” – Fabrizio Amerini, University of Parma, Italy ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-12-01,Gyula Klima and Alexander W. Hall,"The Immateriality of the Human Mind, the Semantics of Analogy, and the Conceivability of God (Volume 1: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics)",Hardback,978-1-4438-3362-2,34.99,"The Immateriality of the Human Mind, the Semantics of Analogy, and the Conceivability of God brings together the work of experts in the field of medieval philosophy to consider the nature of God and the soul, what can be known of the divine essence and the semantics of theological discourse from the perspectives of medieval theology (both natural and revealed), logic and natural philosophy. In his capacity as an arts master commenting on a work of natural philosophy, Aristotle’s De Anima, John Buridan discusses the immateriality of the intellect against the background of the competing, mutually exclusive views of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes. Aquinas takes up the same issue, but in a more properly theological setting, in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, where Aquinas argues that the being of the intellect is independent of matter. Thomas de Vio Cajetan considers the semantics of theological discourse or ‘God talk’ in order to derive a proper means to speak of the divine essence in his De Nominum Analogia; and Anselm of Canterbury’s Proslogion seeks with unaided reason to develop a single proof whereby those who think seriously of anything as ‘that than which nothing greater can be thought’ may know that God exists. ","“The Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established itself as a major venue for the publication of high-quality original articles on medieval philosophy. Particularly welcome is its frequent practice of publishing papers in dialogue with each other. It exemplifies magnificently the ways in which medieval and contemporary philosophy can be brought into fruitful conversation.” – Richard Cross, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA “In the past ten years, the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established a unique presence in both philosophy and medieval studies. By providing a venue for the discussion and publication of original philosophical and historiographical studies on the metaphysical insights of medieval authors from a logical perspective, it has opened a heretofore unexploited and much welcome niche of research.” – Jorge J. E. Gracia, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA “It is my pleasure to recommend to you the nine volumes, thus far, of the Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. . . . By focusing on both logic and metaphysical themes, the articles often shed new light on themes and figures that often escaped the notice of previous scholarship. . . . The volumes are a treasure trove in a field that is once again enjoying a renewed interest with academe.” – Lloyd A. Newton, Benedictine College, Kansas, USA “The study of medieval philosophy is now flourishing as never before, and these volumes showcase the very best of that work. Among the contributors to these volumes are many of the leading figures in the field, and the topics under investigation are fundamental to philosophy.” – Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA “The Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics is an extremely important network for the study of medieval philosophy. . . . Every paper represents a significant contribution based on absolutely original research that meets a very high standard. All the papers actually promote insightful analysis of medieval texts and thought-provoking discussion of philosophical topics.” – Fabrizio Amerini, University of Parma, Italy ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011-12-01,Gyula Klima and Alexander W. Hall,"Universal Representation, and the Ontology of Individuation (Volume 5: Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics)",Hardback,978-1-4438-3372-1,34.99,"There is broad agreement in the medieval tradition that we conceive things in the world owing to the transmission of intelligible content through various media that culminates in the concept by which something in the world is cognitively present for us. Yet how the intelligible content is transmitted along with the nature of the ultimate object of cognition provoked ceaseless debate. The first three essays in Universal Representation, and the Ontology of Individuation consider these issues as they play out in the metaphysics and natural philosophy of Avicenna, Averroes, Thomas Aquinas, Ockham and others. The last three essays turn to the metaphysical problem of the nature of the principle of individuation. Moderate realists believe in the existence of immanent general natures such as humanity and equinity, whereby individuals are members of diverse natural kinds. Accordingly, moderate realists such as Aquinas, Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus need to investigate the nature of the individuating principle by which members of one and the same natural kind differ from one another. Nominalists, for their part, need not concern themselves with any principle of individuation as, for them, all reality is individual, there being no immanent universals; but this release comes at the cost of a new set of epistemological problems. ","“The Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established itself as a major venue for the publication of high-quality original articles on medieval philosophy. Particularly welcome is its frequent practice of publishing papers in dialogue with each other. It exemplifies magnificently the ways in which medieval and contemporary philosophy can be brought into fruitful conversation.” – Richard Cross, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA “In the past ten years, the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics has established a unique presence in both philosophy and medieval studies. By providing a venue for the discussion and publication of original philosophical and historiographical studies on the metaphysical insights of medieval authors from a logical perspective, it has opened a heretofore unexploited and much welcome niche of research.” – Jorge J. E. Gracia, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA “It is my pleasure to recommend to you the nine volumes, thus far, of the Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics. . . . By focusing on both logic and metaphysical themes, the articles often shed new light on themes and figures that often escaped the notice of previous scholarship. . . . The volumes are a treasure trove in a field that is once again enjoying a renewed interest with academe.” – Lloyd A. Newton, Benedictine College, Kansas, USA “The study of medieval philosophy is now flourishing as never before, and these volumes showcase the very best of that work. Among the contributors to these volumes are many of the leading figures in the field, and the topics under investigation are fundamental to philosophy.” – Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA “The Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics is an extremely important network for the study of medieval philosophy. . . . Every paper represents a significant contribution based on absolutely original research that meets a very high standard. All the papers actually promote insightful analysis of medieval texts and thought-provoking discussion of philosophical topics.” – Fabrizio Amerini, University of Parma, Italy ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-02-01,"Joy Schmack, Matthew Thompson and David Torevell with Camilla Cole",Engaging Religious Education,Paperback,978-1-4438-3667-8,24.99,"This book is the first to bring together a number of essays which deal directly with the crucial topic of ‘engagement’ in Religious Education. But it also breaks new ground by creating a dialogue with the world of ethics. Here readers will find fresh insights relevant to the 21st century. Contributors, all committed to excellence in Religious Education, include school teachers, sixth form tutors and those working in higher education. Addressing central issues in the debate from a range of theoretical and methodological positions, the book raises important questions about how we might understand and promote positive ‘engagement’ at the present time. Primarily, it has one aim in view: to make Religious Education a more stimulating and enjoyable experience for all those involved. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-02-01,Heon Kim and John Raines,Making Peace In and With the World: The Gülen Movement and Eco-Justice,Hardback,978-1-4438-3567-1,34.99,"Making Peace In and With the World: The Gülen Movement and Eco-Justice is a representative study and working analysis of contemporary Islamic thought on eco-justice. It cuts through problems facing humanity today, ranging from inequality and violence in the smaller globalized world to “the end/death of nature” as signaled by various environmental and ecological crises. Addressing these problems, this volume sheds light on two dimensions of peace in the earth community – making peace between differing human communities, and making peace between humanity and nature. The phrase Eco-Justice in this volume signifies this dual reality, thereby offering a unique and insightful view that justice in the world must go hand in hand with ecological justice if “peace” is to be made. With its dual foci of peace, this volume contributes to multi-disciplinary academic areas. It adds to a burgeoning field of religious ecology, by exploring the dynamics at play in the interaction between religion, human communities and nature, and by providing natural scientific works with considerable theoretical, philosophical and ethical implications. This volume also corresponds to studies in the interdisciplinary field of “war and peace.” Since it deals centrally with the question of religion and eco-justice, this volume challenges assumptions of exclusivist religion, religion-oriented violence and the religion-based “Clash of Civilizations.” The contributors of this volume from diverse academic backgrounds take Gülen and the Gülen movement as the case study. Muhammed Fethullah Gülen is one of the most significant Islamic theologians in the contemporary world, and his inspired Gülen movement is the fastest growing Islamic civic movement worldwide. This volume provides a key reference to studies in Gülen and his movement for new discussions and criticisms. And, by taking this figure and his movement as a case, it reveals a new dimension of peace among differing human communities and between humanity and nature. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-02-01,Paolo Diego Bubbio and Paul Redding,Religion After Kant: God and Culture in the Idealist Era,Hardback,978-1-4438-3518-3,39.99,"After a period of neglect, the idealist and romantic philosophies that emerged in the wake of Kant’s revolutionary writings have once more become important foci of philosophical interest, especially in relation to the question of the role of religion in human life. By developing and reinterpreting basic Kantian ideas, an array of thinkers including Schelling, Hegel, Friedrich Schlegel, Hölderlin and Novalis transformed the conceptual framework within which the nature of religion could be considered. Furthermore, in doing so they significantly shaped the philosophical perspectives from within which later thinkers such as Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Wagner and Nietzsche could re-pose the question of religion. This volume explores the spaces opened during this extended period of post-Kantian thinking for a reconsideration of the place of religion within the project of human self-fashioning. ","“. . . German thought from Kant to Nietzsche has had an immense impact on philosophy . . . Its impact on religious practice and theology has probably been even greater. Religion After Kant: God and Culture in the Idealist Era gives us a fresh look at a philosophical movement that has also meant so much to the wide-ranging religious public.” – Terry Pinkard, Georgetown University “In recent decades the relations of religion with politics and philosophy have become more complex and tense than confident Enlightenment triumphalists of the mid-20th century could have imagined. We need better modes of thinking about religion. This volume of essays offers new perspectives on 19th century thinkers such as Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Wagner, and others. These are serious philosophical and historical essays, but they also give those thinkers a new urgency. In these essays the history of philosophy is not a museum where we can see extinct species, but a resource where we can find unexpected novelty in reading older thinkers and helpful new directions for our own reflections on today’s concerns and tensions.” – David Kolb, Bates College ",Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-03-01,"Junichi Toyota, Pernilla Hallonsten and Marina Shchepetunina",Sense of Emptiness: An Interdisciplinary Approach,Hardback,978-1-4438-3583-1,39.99,"Human perception is often believed to function holistically, especially in the tradition of Gestalt psychology, involving a focused item and its surrounding. This holistic approach can allow us to explain something that is not directly experienced in our perception, meaning that the absence as well as the presence of something can have a significant impact on how we perceive the world. The way we perceive the presence is more or less the same cross-culturally, but the prominence of the absence, or what is termed emptiness in this volume, varies considerably from one culture to another. The aim of this volume is to identify what emptiness is like and how different cultures incorporate this concept from various perspectives. It turns out that emptiness plays a key role in identifying socio-cultural diversity in a broader sense, including arts and languages. This volume consists of contributions from different fields covering a wide range of topics such as history, literary studies, mythology, film studies, architecture, linguistics, social-anthropology, ethnology and cognitive science. Due to the range covered in this volume, studies presented here are highly interdisciplinary, but all chapters deal with the sense of emptiness, which suggest that the underlying idea of the significance of emptiness is pervasive. Yet, this topic has not previously been systematically compared across different disciplines. It is hoped that this volume will offer a first overview of the pervasiveness and integration of disciplines concerning the sense of emptiness. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-03-01,Farhad Malekian and Kerstin Nordlöf,The Sovereignty of Children in Law,Hardback,978-1-4438-3635-7,54.99,"The system of the United Nations, as well as many international and regional bodies, imposes various duties on states that consequently have obligations towards the rights of their individuals. This is particularly significant in the case of children who are not only considered one of the most valuable subjects of international regulations, but are also an integral part of the legislation of domestic laws. Despite the fact that laws concerning the rights of children are well settled in the international sphere, and are recognized under the jus cogens norms, national laws about children, or national laws having an effect on children, are still not completely adequate. Many legislative and cultural practices expose the fact that children are not recognized as the holders of rights. National legal authorities should not, in accordance with the existing international legislations, plead provisions of their own laws or deficiencies of those laws in response to a request against them for alleged violations of children’s rights that have occurred under their jurisdiction. In fact, the absence of appropriate legislation within national legal systems and the reluctance of legal authorities to seriously take children’s rights into consideration, have been two of the key reasons for the contraventions of children’s rights in national or international conflicts. Strange as it may seem, when we do not respect the rights of others, it might be considered a civil violation or a crime. But when the rights of children are violated it has, on many occasions, been dismissed as custom or argued that they gave their express consent. For example, in the nineties, when a child of 11 was raped in Sweden, the judgment concluded that there was an implicit consent. Similarly, when a child of seven was raped by an Iranian priest in a Mosque, it was judged as the victim receiving spiritual enlightenment. By analogy with the rules which exist to provide legal, social and economic aid to the victims of national or international crimes, it may be possible to suggest that there is an established legal duty for all states to provide access to resources which can, under reasonable criteria, protect children from the improper conducts of individuals, organisations, and the administration of justice. It is, in principle, true that literally millions of people believe that children are their property or that a child has no rights of his or her own, and thus the conduct of parents, guardians, representatives of organisations, and the administration of justice relating to children are permitted as a matter of law or nature. This book examines many different areas within the law which deal with the specific rights of children such as the philosophy of law, civil law, social law, tax law, criminal law, procedural law, international law, human rights law and the humanitarian law of armed conflict. The intention is to show that there are many rules, provisions, norms, and principles within various areas of the law that relate to the rights of children. The extent of these rights implies the existence of certain regions of law which have to be acknowledged and respected by national authorities. However, the acknowledgement of rights is also a matter of intention, and may be implied or expressed by the practice of authorities. The question of the child constituting a self-ruling subject of justice and its legal ability to create an independent individual legal personality for the protection of its rights, but not necessarily for the exercise of those rights, are the central issues of this book. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-05-01,Andrew Robinson,Darwinism and Natural Theology: Evolving Perspectives,Hardback,978-1-4438-3742-2,39.99,"Can Christian theology be reconciled with Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection? Can the biological sciences tell us anything of interest from a religious perspective? Does Christianity have anything to offer when it comes to formulating scientific hypotheses? These questions are among those explored in this collection of essays arising from a meeting of the UK Science and Religion Forum held in Cambridge to mark the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species. The volume brings together contributions from a highly distinguished group of scholars at the forefront of the field of science-and-religion, including R.J. Berry, Celia Deane-Drummond, John Hedley Brooke, David Knight, David Fergusson, Sarah Coakley, Denis Alexander, Christopher Southgate, Kenneth Wilson and Neil Spurway. The essays are organized around the theme of ‘natural theology’ and its continuing role (if any) in the light of Darwinian evolutionary biology. They cover the historical background to the debate; philosophical and theological perspectives on the various forms that natural theology has taken in different historical settings; the effect of Darwinism on theological understandings of nature; and possible contemporary approaches to natural theology, or theologies of nature, in the context of Darwinism. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-05-01,Paula Olmos,Greek Science in the Long Run: Essays on the Greek Scientific Tradition (4th c. BCE-17th c. CE),Hardback,978-1-4438-3775-0,44.99,"Greek traditions relating to both the arts and sciences of life and health and those regarding the systematic development of theories of measurement and quantification enjoyed an incredibly long reputation and showed a kind of versatility that challenges any simplistic, dogmatic or a priori viewpoint about the meaning and social function of systematic knowledge. In this sense, they allow us to focus on very specific traits of the multiple processes of production, textual arrangement and transmission of the sciences. Greek Science in the Long Run: Essays on the Greek Scientific Tradition (4th c. BCE–17th c. CE) offers a collection of essays in which renowned international experts in ancient, medieval and early modern history and culture and the history of science, together with young researchers in these same fields, reflect upon different aspects of this long-standing prominence of Greek models and traditions in the changing configuration of the sciences. The main aim of the volume is to revisit the different processes by which such doctrinal traditions originated, were transmitted and received within diverse socio-cultural contexts and frameworks. The specialized scholars and academics contributing to the volume embrace advanced standpoints regarding these issues and ensure a successful and substantial contribution to one of the lines of research that has recently attracted the most attention within the field of humanities: the interdisciplinary project of a historical epistemology seriously informed by an advanced history of epistemology or the sciences. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-05-01,Kipton E. Jensen,Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason,Hardback,978-1-4438-3779-8,34.99,"This manuscript provides a revisionist reading of Hegel’s 1802 essay, Faith and Knowledge, in which he critiques the various reconciliations of faith and reason proposed by his immediate predecessors and contemporary faith philosophers – namely, Kant, Jacobi, Schleiermacher and Fichte. Hegel’s agonistic interpretation of these “reflective philosophers of subjectivity,” who he reads as settling for a form of reason that is “no longer worthy of the name” and a version of faith that “no longer seems worth the bother,” not only demonstrates his growing facility with the dialectical method for which he is best known but it also anticipates his own speculative reconciliation of faith and reason. To view Hegel’s reading of his predecessors as a series of misreadings, which is not uncommon among scholars of 19th century German philosophy, misses the most instructive aspect of this early but formative essay: Hegel, who was viewed by others if not also by himself as a philosophical latecomer, appropriated the thought of his precursors with an eye toward overcoming them. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-05-01,Stephen Theron,New Hegelian Essays: Seid Umschlungen Millionen,Hardback,978-1-4438-3754-5,44.99,"The essays here in fact form one essay, a connected whole demonstrating Hegel’s overcoming of the traditional religious dualisms, thus enabling Christian doctrine to be inserted, by a leap in interpretation, into the metaphysical tradition. This is chiefly effected via the various internal contradictions, laid bare in Hegel’s dialectical logic, in such pairs as natural and revealed, inside and outside, nature and grace, individual and universal. An overview of this is offered in the Preface. The first essay shows how religious apologetic cannot simply hold back from this deep penetration of religion’s mysteries in philosophical form. The next one sets forth Hegel’s account of revelation. We then pause for general consideration of Hegel’s absolute idealism as the philosophical form. This leads to a comparison with Aristotelian-Thomistic epistemology. After that we change direction somewhat to investigate the driving desire behind such investigations; a little biographical colouring is called into play. Quite naturally a treatment follows of happiness in relation to rationality, continuous with the author’s earlier treatments of the theme of happiness. This has now set the stage for a general comparison of theology and philosophy. Which of these is being exercised here? Grace in relation to nature follows naturally as the next subject. After this there follows a kind of commentary upon Hegel’s choice of Being and his justification for taking Being as starting-point for his Science of Logic. We then pass to consider logical relations generally and in particular Identity, which leads naturally into rational treatment of Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity and, after that, Incarnation, “Signs and Sacraments” and some of the at first sight odder manifestations of piety, viewed now philosophically. This is followed by consideration of Religion in relation to both Philosophy and Freedom. To illuminate the vision yet more we end with commentaries upon Hegel’s text, first that on “The Subjective Notion as Notion” and why it is called that, second upon his Introduction to the third part of his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, namely, “The Philosophy of Spirit”. Porphyry called the ancient Jews “a nation of philosophers”. He saw them as something more than a religious sect. The claim here – Hegel’s claim – is that Christians are called to the perfection of both religion and philosophy in a “wisdom that comes from above” as perfecting the habit of faith. Religion, Hegel said, is for all men and women, and hence children; as it might seem, philosophy is not. Yet we have in most religions a tradition of “mysticism”, viewed either as an addition or, it is widely held, as the full accomplishment of the life of grace. Now there is more than an analogy between Hegel’s speculative philosophy and speculative mysticism, just as one might say of Augustine, Anselm, Eckhart and a host of others. In harmony with this, Hegel claims that speculative reason corresponds with our most ordinary thought processes. Thus, there is no technical philosophical language. To read Hegel, therefore, he says himself, is to participate in a philosophical Gottesdienst or divine “service”; one which as wholly spiritual bypasses the apparatus, it might seem, of Church and sacraments, whether or not these be deemed necessary. To this participation the text here presented invites, as sober presentation and not merely interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-05-01,Christopher David Shaw,"On Exceeding Determination and the Ideal of Reason: Immanuel Kant, William Desmond, and the Noumenological Principle",Hardback,978-1-4438-3748-4,34.99,"On Exceeding Determination and the Ideal of Reason: Immanuel Kant, William Desmond, and the Noumenological Principle examines the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, as it bears on theological principles. Focusing on the foundational ideas (of self, world, and God) that constitute Kant’s metaphysical system, Shaw argues that these ideal projections of the rational structures of the thinking subject only conceal and obfuscate the more robust sense of the real that exists behind all phenomenal appearances. This book aims to critically assess the theological content presented in the philosophy of Kant whilst reconstructing and developing some of Kant’s more obscure points on the epistemological limitations of pure reason and the borders of knowledge itself. Shaw draws into dialogue with the writings of the contemporary philosopher William Desmond to demonstrate some of the problems of Kantian thought when it comes to the deeper mysteries of being. Desmondian philosophy proves to be a powerful influence over much of this work, as Shaw advances upon the delicate nexus where philosophy and theology convene. As a bold addition to this work, Shaw lays the groundwork for a new discourse in theology and the philosophy of religion: “Noumenology”. Noumenology, which is Shaw’s response to the deficiencies in methods concerning many of the modern approaches to phenomenology, is a call for the recalibration of the starting point for eidetic inquiry through the proposal of a non-discursive approach to the sensible, emotional, and intellectual – or perhaps, the all together spiritual. To accomplish this, Shaw reaches back to Kant for a heterodox approach to the language and content surrounding the noumenonal to set forth his theological interpretation of the “Noumenological Principle”. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-07-01,Luminița Frențiu and Loredana Pungă,A Journey through Knowledge: Festschrift in Honour of Hortensia Pârlog,Hardback,978-1-4438-3969-3,39.99,,,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-07-01,Tom Grimwood,"Irony, Misogyny and Interpretation: Ambiguous Authority in Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche",Hardback,978-1-4438-3977-8,34.99,"What is it to claim that “misogyny” might be “ironic”? Why is it that, in the works of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer, the possibility of irony constantly interferes with a conclusive ethical judgement over the meaning of their “misogyny”? How do we hold our interpretations of such ambiguous texts ethically accountable? This book brings together the driving concerns of hermeneutics, feminist philosophy and the history of philosophy in dealing with the “problem of irony”. It develops a thematic account of the concept of irony as a philosophical form of interpretation, and explores this through close readings of three key sites of controversy regarding the relationship between irony and misogyny: Schopenhauer's ""On Women"", Kierkegaard's ""In Vino Veritas"" and Nietzsche's ""Woman and Child"". Rather than aiming to “rescue” their misogynistic texts by appealing to irony, the book suggests that ironic ambiguity is a formative, rather than distractive, aspect of these text's misogyny. Working from the productive intersection between hermeneutics and deconstruction, the book explores the substantial ways in which authority and value are constructed in terms of ironic possiblity. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-07-01,Jana Mohr Lone and Roberta Israeloff,Philosophy and Education,Hardback,978-1-4438-3979-2,39.99,,,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-07-01,Alfredo Marcos,Postmodern Aristotle,Hardback,978-1-4438-3968-6,34.99,"The modern world was in part born as a reaction against Aristotelianism. However, the image of Aristotle to which modern philosophers reacted was partial, to say the least. Paradoxical though it may seem, today, twenty-three centuries on, we may now be in the most advantageous position for understanding the Stagirite’s philosophy and applying it to contemporary problems. The present book contributes to the forming of an idea of Post-modern reason inspired in a constellation of Aristotelian concepts, such as prudence (phronesis), practical truth (aletheia praktike), science in act (episteme en energeiai), metaphor (metaphora), similarity (homoiosis) and the imitation-creation pair (mimesis-poiesis). They all form an interconnected network and together they make up an idea of reason that may prove suitable for the present. These concepts offer the most promising basis for undertaking a series of urgent reconciliations: of facts and values, of means and ends, of theoretical and practical reason, of intelligence and emotion. Aristotle’s notions could help solve many dualisms of modern times. He offers a third way between identity and difference in ontology and politics, between algorithm and anarchism in methodology, between naïf realism and plain relativism in epistemology, between equivocity and univocity in language, between Enlightenment and Romanticism in culture... On the way, this shift facilitates the relationships between science, arts and ethics -the three parts of the sphere of culture which Modernity had separated-, as well as the integration of the sphere of culture itself with the world of life. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2012-07-01,Farhad Malekian and Kerstin Nordlöf,The Rule of Law for the Protection of Children: The Basic Documents with Analysis,Hardback,978-1-4438-3981-5,44.99,"Within the sphere of law it is the recognition of its subjects, private or official individuals, private or public entities, and states which has been the most prominent facet of national or international relations. The dominance of the question of recognition has led to the development of the law and the maintenance of its provisions. In other words, rights imply recognition, and recognition implies the legal permission to use certain rights. Obviously, the legal effect of recognition is limited if rights are not implemented completely or appropriately. Thus, the complexity one may expect of a legal issue is not just how to deal with the relevant issue in a court of justice, but how to prove that the machinery of justice does not own or use the appropriate documents necessary for the examination of the issue. This is because recognition is acknowledgment of an existing state of the subject of the law or the legal personality that has been granted by adoption or ratification of law nationally, regionally or internationally. Consequently, when we formulate law about children or their rights and interests, we implicitly or explicitly infer their existence. This is merely a declaration of their recognition. This book on the rules of law for the protection of children brings together all international documents which are significant to the protection of the rights of children. The introduction to each document presented in the book demonstrates that there is not necessarily any particular need to prove the legal existence of children’s rights. They obviously exist with full rights, but the implementation of those rights is indeed not so easy. In addition, as a matter of principle, we must not forget that the natural personality of each child has not been created by national, regional or international documents, but on their very existence within our global environment, constituting the human beings of their own age. ",,Cambridge Scholars Publishing