Metacide : in the pursuit of excellence /
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If philosophy addresses concrete ethical challenges, then what shifts in basic concepts must be made to the discipline in the darkness of our genocidal world? What anti-genocidal strains are in Western philosophy? Are we "really" rejects and/ or "still of intrinsic worth" when we fail our excellence tests? How are we represented and how do we participate in representations? Are representational forms historical in origin and development? Is genocide indissolubly linked to our degradation and destruction of animals? Can one slaughter and eat one's partners in a social bond? If so, what does this tell us about the socio-political world we have formed? Is there a deep center-metacide-in our culture from which genocide receives its impulse? These are some of the pivotal questions addressed in the thirteen thought-provoking essays of this volume.
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1 online resource (viii, 314 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789042028548 :
0929-8436 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Reality and Culture : Essays on the Philosophy of Bernard Harrison.
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More than being a volume about the philosophy of Bernard Harrison, this volume is about how Harrison conceptualizes the creation of the human world. One might be tempted to classify Harrison as a major voice in many diverse discussions-philosophy of literature, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, color studies, epistemology, metaphysics, moral philosophy, philosophy of culture, Wittgenstein, antisemitism, and more-without recognizing a unifying strand that ties them together. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Harrison contests and destabilizes a persistent and misleading alignment of culture with subjectivity-whether found in unexamined distinctions between nature and culture or appearance and reality. His general aim has been to undermine the belief that human culture deals in smoke and mirrors, and that the only realities are those of extra-human nature. He emphasizes the paraxial foundation of meaning, and argues that the creative inventions of language and culture are as real as any extra-linguistic reality. While granting the existence of extra-human reality, he holds it to be, in itself, conceptually unorganised, but nevertheless cognitively accessible by way of sense-perception and physical manipulation. This volume offers new critical essays that examine Harrison's corpus, written by distinguished voices in philosophy and literary studies. It bridges many of the abysses of conflicting opinion opened by the culture wars of the past half-century. Importantly, it includes an opening essay by Harrison that elucidates the unifying strand running through his variegated philosophical writings, and concludes with a chapter in which he replies to and reflects on the other critical essays herein.
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1 online resource (294 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789401210669 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The philosophy of spirituality : analytic, continental, and multicultural approaches to a new field of philosophy /
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The essays in The Philosophy of Spirituality explore a new field in philosophy. Until recently, most philosophers in the analytic and continental Western traditions treated spirituality as a religious concept. Any non-religious spirituality tended to be neglected or dismissed as irremediably vague. Here, from various philosophical and cultural perspectives, it is addressed as a subject of independent interest. This is a philosophical response to increasing numbers of spiritual but not religious people inhabiting secular societies and the heightened interaction between a multitude of spiritual traditions in a globalized age. A provocative array of approaches (African, Indigenous, Indian, Stoic, and Sufic perspectives, as well as Western analytic and continental views) offer fresh insights, many articulated by emerging voices. Contributors are Mariapaola Bergomi, Moses Biney, Christopher Braddock, Drew Chastain, Kerem Eksen, Nikolay Milkov, Roderick Nicholls, Jerry Piven, Heather Salazar, Eric Steinhart, Richard White, Mark Wynn and Eric Yang.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004376311 :
0929-8436 ;
Cynical suspicions and Platonist pretentions : a critique of contemporary political theory /
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In Cynical Suspicions and Platonist Pretensions , John McGuire offers a critique of recent trends in contemporary political theory, specifically concerning the 'dangers' of cynicism and the contamination of public reason. In the view of many theorists and pundits, cynicism remains one of the gravest ills to befall any democratic society, injecting a virulent estrangement which leaves sufferers unable to trust elected representatives and unwilling to participate in collective action. Starting with a reconstruction of the performative and rhetorical tactics of the 'first' Cynic, Diogenes of Sinope (c. 323 BCE), John McGuire aims to demonstrate how cynicism's non-defeatist, relentlessly sceptical ethos provides an important counterweight to the self-aggrandising designs of moralists and policymakers alike.
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1 online resource (vii, 239 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004364929 :
1572-459X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Science in Culture : Translated from the Polish by Hugh McDonald.
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This book tries to uncover science's discoverer and explain why the conception of science has been changing during the centuries, and why science can be beneficial and dangerous for humanity. Far from being hermetic, this research can be interesting for all who want to understand deeper what really conditions the place of science in culture.
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1 online resource (351 pages) :
9789401203852 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Ethics of Homelessness : Philosophical Perspectives /
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This new and expanded edition of G. John M. Abbarno's anthology The Ethics of Homelessness underscores what is ignored in plain sight: people without a home or dwelling are also without privacy and dignity. It is argued that they lack moral standing. The chapters uncover the harsh realities of poverty where economic value overrides competing human values. Naomi Zack argues that homelessness is symbolic of society's materialistic values. It has a tendency to resist sufficient charity and perpetuates conditions of injustice. Uma Narayan questions whether the homeless have protection under the U.S. Constitution. Other authors present an enlarged sphere of homeless to include runaway children, refugees, adoptees and the disabled. The book demonstrates the value of applied philosophy.
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1 online resource. :
9789004420366
9789004420359
The plant contract : art's return to vegetal life /
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The Plant Contract argues that visual and performance art can help change our perception of the vegetal world, and can return us to nature and thought. Via an investigation into the wasteland, robotany, feminist plants, and nature rights, this phytology-love story investigates how contemporary art is mediating the effects of plant-blindness, caused by human disassociation from the natural world. It is also a gesture of respect for the genius of vegetal life, where new science proves plants can learn, communicate, remember, make decisions, and associate. Art is a litmus test for how climate change affects human perception. This book responds to that test by expressing plant-philosophy to a wider public, through an interrogation of plant-art.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004360549 :
2213-0659 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
History as a science : the philosophy of R.G. Collingwood /
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"Since its appearance in 1981, History as a Science by Jan van der Dussen has been welcomed as a coherent and comprehensive study of the many aspects of Collingwood's philosophy of history, including its development and reception. The book was the first to pay attention to Collingwood's unpublished manuscripts, and to his work as an archaeologist and historian, herewith opening up a new angle in Collingwood studies. The republication of this volume meets an increasing demand to make the book available for future Collingwood scholars, and people interested in Collingwood's philosophy. The present edition of History as a Science includes updated references to the published manuscripts and an added preface".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004424937
David R. Blumenthal /
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David R. Blumenthal is Jay and Leslie Cohen Professor of Judaic Studies at Emory University. He has contributed greatly to the growth of Jewish Studies, the place of Judaism in Religious Studies, interreligious dialogue, and the reframing of Judaism in light of the Holocaust, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. For Blumenthal, theology is an ongoing reflection about everything we believe and do in the context of the living tradition.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004279759 :
2213-6010 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Consciousness and loneliness : theoria and praxis /
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Current research claims loneliness is passively caused by external conditions: environmental, cultural, situational, and even chemical imbalances in the brain and hence avoidable. In this book, the author argues that loneliness is actively constituted by acts of reflexive self-consciousness (Kant) and transcendent intentionality (Husserl) and is, therefore, unavoidable. This work employs a historical, conceptual, and interdisciplinary approach (philosophy, psychology, literature, sociology, et cetera) criticizing both psychoanalysis and neuroscience. The book pits materialism, mechanism, determinism, empiricism, phenomenalism, behaviorism, and the neurosciences against dualism, both subjective and objective idealism, rationalism, freedom, phenomenology, and existentialism. It offers a dynamic of loneliness, whose spontaneous subconscious sources undercuts the unconscious of Freud and the "computerism" of the neurosciences by challenging their claims to be predictive sciences.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004385979 :
0929-8436 ;
Johann Amos Comenius und die pädagogischen Hoffnungen der Gegenwart : Grundzüge einer mentälitatsgeschichtlichen Neuinterpretation seines Werkes.
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Insofern Erziehung auf die Zukunft gerichtet ist, bedarf sie der Hoffnung. Und wer nicht hofft, kann auch nicht erziehen. Doch die nicht selten euphorisch zu nennende Erwartung, dass man von einer wissenschaftlich begründeten Erziehung auch eine entscheidende Weltverbesserung erhoffen könne, dürfte wesentlich eine Erfindung der anhebenden Neuzeit gewesen sein. Die übliche pädagogische Ideengeschichte sieht in Comenius zumeist einen vormodernen Gegenpol zum technisch-zivilisatorischen Denken der Neuzeit - und übersah damit notwendig wesentliche Kontinuitäten. Denn es war Comenius, der mit seiner pansophischen Systematik zuerst die Hoffnung verband, eine solcherart durchkonstruierte Erziehungsmaschine begründet zu haben, dass eine wahrhaft pansophisch ausgerichtete Erziehung auch einen unfehlbaren Erziehungserfolg verbürgen müsse. Ein mentalitätsgeschichtlicher Zugang vermag dabei zu zeigen, wie sich die pädagogischen Hoffnungen des Comenius entwickelt und zeitgleich mit der pansophischen Systematik ausgeprägt haben. Je durchdachter die Systematik wurde, desto unfehlbarer sollte auch die Erziehung werden. Mit einer vollkommen realisierten pansophischen Erziehung würden sich also alle Hoffnungen auf eine Weltverbesserung erfüllen ; alles, was bis dahin zukunftsgerichtete Hoffnung war, würde also mit der Pampaedia zur erfüllten Gegenwart werden. Von der menschlichen resignation der Frühschriften über die gott-menschliche cooperatio der pansophischen Programmschriften führt solcherart der Weg zur intendierten omnipotentia des Menschen, an welcher schließlich auch die Erziehung teilhaben soll. Unter der Rücksicht der longue durée ist Comenius damit nicht nur ein , sondern letztlich der Begründer der pädagogischen Moderne. Seit Comenius produziert wissenschaftlich-systematisches Denken immer neue Erziehungshoffnungen, die sich sodann durch gesellschaftliche Erwartungshaltungen selbstlaufend re -produzieren und die Nachfrage nach pädagogischer Wissenschaftlichkeit wiederum steigern. Doch die Welt hat sich bis heute bekanntlich nicht verbessern lassen - trotz einer über 350 Jahre alten Tradition wissenschaftlich begründeter Pädagogik.
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1 online resource (184 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789042031524 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Intolerance, polemics, and debate in antiquity : politico-cultural, philosophical, and religious forms of critical conversation /
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In Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity scholars reflect on politico-cultural, philosophical, and religious forms of critical conversation in the ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, Graeco-Roman, and early-Islamic world. They enquire into the boundaries between debate, polemics, and intolerance, and address their manifestations in both philosophy and religion. This cross-cultural and inclusive approach shows that debate and polemics are not so different as often assumed, since polemics may also indicate that ultimate values are at stake. Polemics can also have a positive effect, stimulating further cultural development. Intolerance is more straightforwardly negative. Religious intolerance is often a justification for politics, but also elite rationalism can become totalitarian. The volume also highlights the importance of the fluency of minorities in the dominant discourses and of their ability to develop contrapuntal lines of thought within a common cultural discourse.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004411500
Brill's companion to the philosophy of biology : entities, processes, implications /
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"In this volume, Andrea Borghini and Elena Casetta introduce a wide spectrum of key philosophical problems related to life sciences in a neat framework and an accessible style, with a special emphasis on metaphysical issues. The volume is divided into three parts. The first addresses the two main questions stemming from life sciences: what is life, and what is the correct understanding of the theory of evolution? The second part looks at metaphysical questions concerning biological entities: environments, species, organisms, and biological individuals. The third part focuses on theoretical questions of particular ethical and political significance: sex and gender, the biotechnological revolution, and the evolution of behavior and culture. Each chapter is followed by a list of further readings".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004400160
Philosophical Approaches to the Foundations of Logic and Mathematics : In Honor of Stanisław Krajewski /
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Eleven papers collected in the volume Philosophical Approaches to the Foundations of Logic and Mathematics address various aspects of the "roots", basic concepts and the nature of logic and mathematics. Taken together, these papers reveal how many serious philosophical problems lie at the foundations of logic and mathematics. The topics discussed in this volume include: transcending anti-foundationalism and two concurrent trends of "anthropological" and "practical" understanding of the foundations of mathematics, new approaches to mathematical realism, the "roots" of logic in a genetic perspective, the primacy of truth or satisfaction, and the "effectiveness" of mathematics in terms of categorical semantics.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004445956
9789004445949
Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541) : essential theoretical writings /
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The daunting writings of Paracelsus-the second largest 16th-century body of writings in German after Luther's-contributed to medicine, natural science, alchemy, philosophy, theology, and esoteric tradition. This volume provides a critical edition of essential writings from the authoritative 1589 Huser Paracelsus alongside new English translations and commentary on the sources and context of the full corpus. The Essential Theoretical Writings incorporate topics ranging from metaphyics, cosmology, faith, religious conflict, magic, gender, and education, to the processes of nature, disease and medication, female and male sufferings, and cures of body and soul. Properly contextualized, these treatises yield rich extracts of Renaissance and Reformation culture, soundings of 16th-century life, and keys to an influential but poorly understood early modern intellectual tradition.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047423416 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Platonizing Sethian Background of Plotinus's Mysticism /
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In The Platonizing Sethian Background of Plotinus's Mysticism , Zeke Mazur offers a radical reconceptualization of Plotinus with reference to Gnostic thought and praxis. A crucial element in the thought of the third-century CE philosopher Plotinus-his conception of mystical union with the One-cannot be understood solely within the conventional history of philosophy, or as the product of a unique, sui generis psychological propensity. This monograph demonstrates that Plotinus tacitly patterned his mystical ascent to the One on a type of visionary ascent ritual that is first attested in Gnostic sources. These sources include the Platonizing Sethian tractates Zostrianos (NHC VIII,1) and Allogenes (NHC XI,3) of which we have Coptic translations from Nag Hammadi and whose Greek Vorlagen were known to have been read in Plotinus's school.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004441712
9789004441675
Queer philosophy : presentations of the Society for Lesbian and Gay Philosophy, 1998-2008 /
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The book is a collection of the presentations of the Society for Lesbian and Gay Philosophy from 1998 to 2008. The essays are organized historically, starting in 1998. Their topics cover virtually every philosophical field, and such that each is connected to gay and lesbian studies. Topics include how we are to understand sexual orientation, whether same-sex leads to polygamy, teaching gay studies to undergraduates, promiscuity and virtue, the "war on terror" and gay oppression, the rationality of coming out, the ethics of outing, connections between being gay and being happy, and last, but not least, dignity and being gay.
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1 online resource (xix, 412 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401208352 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Concept and Judgment in Brentano's Logic Lectures : Analysis and Materials /
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Concept and Judgment in Brentano's Logic Lectures is concerned with a crucial aspect of Brentano's philosophy as it was developed in his logic lectures from c. 1870 to c. 1885. The first part of the volume is an analysis of his theory of concept and judgment. The second part consists of materials, including a German edition and English translation of notes that a student took from a lecture course that Brentano gave. A short book by this student on Brentano is also translated in the materials. The access to Brentano's philosophy is enhanced by this volume not only with regard to his logic as a theory of deductive inference, but also to his descriptive psychology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004443037
9789004443020
Diversity in the structure of Christian reasoning : interpretation, disagreement, and world Christianity /
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Diversity in the Structure of Christian Reasoning examines the effect of Christian commitments on rationality. When Christians read scripture, traditions supply concepts that shape what counts as normal, good, and true. This book offers an account of how different communities produce divergent readings of the Bible. It considers two examples from World Christianity, first a Bakongo community in central Africa, and then a Tamil bishop in southern India. Each case displays a relation between tradition and reason that reconfigures the hermeneutical picture developed by Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. To see what transpires when readers decide about a correct interpretation, this book offers theologians and scholars of religion a fresh strategy that keeps in view the global character of modern Christianity.
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1 online resource (x, 242 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004298057 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Naturalized epistemology and philosophy of science /
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Much has happened in the field of contemporary epistemology since Quine's "Epistemology Naturalized" was published in 1969. Even before Ronald Giere published his article "Philosophy of Science Naturalized," naturalized philosophy of science had been influenced by the so-called historical approach. Kuhm, Lakatos, Feyerabend and Laudan all contributed importantly to this trend. In this light it has emerged, without a doubt, that philosophy of science is closely related to epistemology. This volume explores some of the relevant relations and will be of interest to epistemologists and philosophers of science.
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"The 2006 Soochow international philosophy conference and workshop 'Naturalized Epistemology and Philosophy of Science', held in Taipei, Taiwan ..."--Preface. :
1 online resource (196 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789401204361 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.