In this well-known work, Etienne Gilson undertakes a sufficiently difficult task, namely, to define the spirit of mediaeval philosophy. He focuses on and supports his conclusion that the Middle Ages produced, besides a Christian literature and art as everyone admits, this very Christian philosophy, which is a matter of dispute.
When I teach the Republic now, the reactions to it are more urgent and more intense than they were a quarter-century ago when i was working this translation and interpretation. The Republic is, of course, a permanent book, one of the small number of books that engage the interest and sympathy of thoughtful persons wherever books are esteemed and read in freedom......
This is a reissue of Jerrold Levinson's 1990 book which gathers together the writings that made him a leading figure in contemporary aesthetics. A new introduction reflects on the essays and their influence over the last 20 years.
The present investigation has grown out of several preoccupations, some private, some professional, and others, finally, that I would call public. Private preoccupation: to say nothing of my gaze directed back now over a long life—Reflexion faite (looking back)—it is a question here of returning to a lacuna in the problematic of Time and Narrative and in Oneself as Another, where temporal e…
Besides the fact that Ethics, Education, and Eschatology all begin with the letter E readers may find the combination strange. However, the three are important themes in Calvin’s works that help to explain the development of western thought and action. Ethics is perhaps the most obvious theme to be found in his work as his first attempt at publication was on ethics; his work on Seneca’s De …
Epistemology is currently in friendly ferment, bubbling away at the heart of everyday philosophical focus. Encouragingly many epistemologists are sampling and analysing new perplexities and fresh theories. And—a welcome sign—there are even probing assessments of epistemological methodology. What will emerge from this activity? What should emerge from it? How worthwhile a philosophical legac…
Immanuel Kant’s moral theory presupposes a theory of action that has not been well understood. As a consequence, his moral theory has not been well understood, at least in parts. So this book develops an interpretation of Kant’s theory of action in order to help us better understand his moral theory.
In the last few decades philosophers have rediscovered friendship as a distinct topic of interest. Aristotle’s thought has been, justifiably, the starting point for most philosophical work on friendship, and often its focus. This renewal of philosophical interest has seldom, however, translated into interest in what Aquinas and other medieval philosophers had to say about friendship. Interest…
On 5 October 1971, I wrote a short paper on Metaphysics 1004b25–6, for a tutorial with G. E. L. Owen at Harvard. Since then I have intermittently pursued some lines of inquiry connected with that passage; the current result of them is this book. The first chapter gives a survey of its contents, and some idea of the main argument. I try to explore some connexions between different areas of Ari…
Before me is a grassy green field. A line of trees marks its far edge, which is punctuated by a spruce on its left side and a maple on its right. Birds are singing. A warm breeze brings the smell of roses from a nearby trellis. I reach for a glass of iced tea, still cold to the touch and flavored by fresh mint. I am alert, the air is clear, the scene is quiet. My perceptions are quite distinct.
Kierkegaard and Philosophy: Selected Essays makes seventeen of the most important papers on Kierkegaard available in one place for the first time. Their author, renowned Kierkegaard scholar Alastair Hannay, has substantially revised many of his earlier essays and prepared three new essays especially for this volume.
THIS BOOK IS about the young Kant. It is an investigation of the first two decades of his philosophical life, from the Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1746/7) to the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (1766). I examine the rise and fall of the ‘‘precritical’’ theories and place them in their historical and topical context—exploring how Kant resolved problems his predecessors an…
This book brings together for the first time traditional Christian theological perspectives on truth and reality with a contemporary philosophical view of the place of language in both divine and worldly reality...
An enterprise like this does not see the light of day without a large network of support, going back many years. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to one of my first teachers, Colin Kingsley of Edinburgh University, whose academic interests combined with high standards of performance provided an inspiration which has never waned, and to James Torrance, who many years ago introduced me to the l…
Offering a comprehensive introduction to postmodernism, this Companion features examinations of the different aspects of postmodernist thought and culture that have had a significant effect on contemporary critical thought. Topics discussed by experts in the field include postmodernism's relation to modernity, and its significance and relevance to literature, film, law, philosophy, and modern c…
The Cambridge Companion to Socrates is a collection of essays providing a comprehensive guide to Socrates, the most famous Greek philosopher. Because Socrates himself wrote nothing, our evidence comes from the writings of his friends (above all Plato), his enemies, and later writers. Socrates is thus a literary figure as well as a historical person. Both aspects of Socrates’ legacy are covere…
The Critical Thinking Toolkit is a comprehensive compendium that equips readers with the essential knowledge and methods for clear, analytical, logical thinking and critique in a range of scholarly contexts and everyday situations.Takes an expansive approach to critical thinking by exploring concepts from other disciplines, including evidence and justification from philosophy, cognitive biases …
Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne argues compellingly that the existence of the universe, its law-governed nature and fine-tuning, human consciousness and moral awareness, and evidence of miracles and religious experience, all tak…
The Gods and Technology is a careful and original reading of the principal statement of Martin Heidegger's philosophy of technology, the essay Die Frage nach der Technik ("The question concerning technology"). That essay is a rich one, and Richard Rojcewicz's goal is to mine it for the treasures only a close reading of the original German text can bring out. Rojcewicz shows how the issue of tec…
In this clear and provocative account of the epistemology of religious experience, William P. Alston argues that the perception of God―his term for direct experiential awareness of God―makes a major contribution to the grounds of religious belief. Surveying the variety of reported direct experiences of God, Alston demonstrates that a person can be justified in holding certain beliefs about …
The central question in the philosophy of time is whether time is tensed or tenseless, viz., whether the moments of time are objectively past, present or future, or whether they are ordered merely by the tenseless temporal relations earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than. In this book and the companion volume The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination, Craig undertakes the first…
The central question in the philosophy of time is whether time is tensed or tenseless, viz., whether the moments of time are objectively past, present or future, or whether they are ordered merely by the tenseless temporal relations earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than. In this book and the companion volume The Tenseless Theory of Time: A Critical Examination, Craig undertakes the fi…
A classic work that has revolutionized thinking throughout the Western world about the nature of the psychiatric profession and the moral implications of its practices.
In this highly original and ground-breaking work, the author brings together discussions in the philosophy of time and space, philosophy of language, phenomenology, philosophy of science, Special and General Relativity, classical cosmology, quantum mechanics, and so forth, with the concerns of philosophy of religion and theology, in order to craft a philosophically informed and scientifically t…
These are fundamental questions that any thinking person wants answers to. These are questions that philosophy addresses. And the answers we give to these kinds of questions serve as the foundation stones for constructing any kind of worldview. Now updated and expanded in this second edition, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig offers a c…
Naturalism provides a rigorous analysis and critique of the major varieties of contemporary philosophical naturalism. The authors advocate the thesis that contemporary naturalism should be abandoned, in light of the serious objections raised against it. Contributors draw on a wide range of topics including: epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and agency, and natural …
The Philosophy Book explains more than one hundred of the greatest ideas in philosophy through clear, succinct text and easy-to-follow graphics. Using straightforward graphics and artworks, as well as thoroughly accessible text that elucidates more than two thousand years of philosophical thought, The Philosophy Book makes abstract concepts concrete. From moral ethics to the philosoph…
This is a comprehensive introduction to the philosophical and political thought of Karl Popper, now available in English. It is divided into three parts; the first part provides a biography of Popper; the second part looks at his works and recurrent themes, and the third part assesses his critics. It was approved of by Popper himself as a sympathetic and comprehensive study, and will be ideal t…
Definitions of humanism as educational movement, philosophical concept or existential ‘life stance’ have evolved over the centuries as the term has been adopted for a variety of cultural and political purposes and contexts, and reactions against humanism have contributed to movements such as structuralism, postmodernism and postcolonialism. Tony Davies offers a clear introduction to the …
A classic work that has revolutionized thinking throughout the Western world about the nature of the psychiatric profession and the moral implications of its practices. "Bold and often brilliant.”—Science "It is no exaggeration to state that Szasz's work raises major social issues which deserve the attention of policy makers and indeed of all informed and socially conscious Americans...Quit…
What is free speech?; Why does it matter? These are pressing questions. In this book, Alan Haworth outlines and analyses the main arguments philosophers have advanced over the centuries, in an attempt to answer them clearly. He emphasises the strengths but also the weaknesses of those arguments, demonstrating that an understanding of both is essential if one is to to grasp the true nature and v…
A companion piece to The Concept of Anxiety, this work continues Søren Kierkegaard's radical and comprehensive analysis of human nature in a spectrum of possibilities of existence. Present here is a remarkable combination of the insight of the poet and the contemplation of the philosopher. In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard moves beyond anxiety on the mental-emotional level to the spiritu…
Presented here in a new translation, with a historical introduction by the translators, "Fear and Trembling and Repetition" are the most poetic and personal of Soren Kierkegaard's pseudonymous writings. Published in 1843 and written under the names Johannes de Silentio and Constantine Constantius, respectively, the books demonstrate Kierkegaard's transmutation of the personal into the lyrically…
Søren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher rediscovered in the twentieth century, is a major influence in contemporary philosophy, religion, and literature. He regarded Either/Or as the beginning of his authorship, although he had published two earlier works on Hans Christian Andersen and irony. The pseudonymous volumes of Either/Or are the writings of a young man (I) and of …
Best known for having declared the death of God, Nietzsche was a thinker thoroughly absorbed in the Christian tradition in which he was born and raised. Yet while the atheist Nietzsche is well known, the pious Nietzsche is seldom recognized and rarely understood. Redeeming Nietzsche examines the residual theologian in the most vociferous of atheists. Giles Fraser demonstrates that although Niet…
Philosophy is all about our beliefs and attitudes about ourselves and the world. Doing philosophy, therefore, is first of all the activity of stating, as clearly and as convincingly as possible, what we believe and what we believe in. This does not mean, however, that announcing one’s allegiance to some grand-sounding ideas or, perhaps, some impressive word or “ism” is all that there is…
Logic With Trees is a new and original introduction to modern formal logic. Unlike most texts, it also contains discussions on more philosophical issues such as truth, conditionals and modal logic. It presents the formal material with clarity, preferring informal explanations and arguments to intimidatingly rigorous development. Worked examples and exercises enable the readers to check their pr…
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology gives readers a view into this increasingly vital and urgently needed domain of philosophical understanding, offering an in-depth collection of leading and emerging voices in the philosophy of technology. The thirty-two contributions in this volume cut across and connect diverse philosophical traditions and methodologies. They reveal the often-neg…
As the study of time has flourished in the physical and human sciences, the philosophy of time has come into its own as a lively and diverse area of academic research. Philosophers investigate not just the metaphysics of time, and our experience and representation of time, but the role of time in ethics and action, and philosophical issues in the sciences of time, especially with regard to quan…
The way in which philosophy has remained the foundation and basis on which the different areas of science (also known as special-sciences or academic disciplines) have continually developed, will scarcely enjoy attention in school teaching. Yet, we can only truly obtain a complete perspective on school subjects like mathematics, physics, biology, history, geography, languages etc. When we view…
Tracing a path through Kierkegaard's writings, this book brings the reader into close contact with the texts and purposes of this remarkable 19th century Danish writer and thinker. Kierkegaard writes in a number of voices and registers: as a sharp observer and critic of Danish culture, or as a moral psychologist, and as a writer concerned to evoke the religious way of life of Socrates, Abraham,…
This book belongs to a fairly rare genre: that of a natural scientist writing for the general educated public on cultural issues that are only indirectly related to his field of research and teaching. No one nowadays, by contrast, bats an eyelash when academics whose training is in literaiy criticism hold forth on questions of sociology, economics and politics; indeed, such wideranging cultural…
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, a radical change occurred in notions of self and personal identity. This was a sudden transformation, says Dror Wahrman, and nothing short of a revolution in the understanding of selfhood and of identity categories including race, gender, and class. In this pathbreaking book, he offers a fundamentally new interpretation of this critical turning point in…
Finding the box top to the puzzle of life -- Can we handle the truth? -- Why should anyone believe anything at all? -- In the beginning there was a great surge -- Divine design -- The first life, natural law or divine awe? -- New life forms, from the goo to you via the zoo? -- Mother Teresa vs. Hitler -- Miracles, signs of God or gullibility? -- Do we have early testimony about Jesus? -- Do we …
Philosophy can be an extremely technical and complex affair, one whose terminology and procedures are often intimidating to the beginner and demanding even for the professional. Like that of surgery, the art of philosophy requires mastering a body of knowledge as well as acquiring precision and skill with a set of instruments or tools. The Philosopher's Toolkit may be thought of as a collection…
God's providence over the world posed a traditional set of questions for the medieval philosopher-theologian. In the third part of his first principal part of The Universe of Creatures, William of Auvergne argues that God's providence over creation extends to all things, the lowest as well as the highest. He tackles problems, such as pain, suffering, and other evils and faces questions, such as…
This work is a guide to the life, thought and activities of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), the great fifteenth-century philosopher, theologian, jurist, author of mystical and ecclesiastical treatises, cardinal and reformer. It is intended not only for advanced scholars, but also for beginners and those simply curious about a man who has been called 'one of the greatest Germans of the fifteenth c…
Sir Anthony Kenny tells the fascinating story of the birth of philosophy and its remarkable flourishing in the ancient Mediterranean world. This is the first of four volumes in which he unfolds a magisterial new history of Western philosophy. Specially written for a broad popular readership, but serious and deep enough to offer a genuine understanding of the great philosophers, Kenny's lucid an…
Here is the concluding volume of Sir Anthony Kenny's monumental four-volume history of philosophy, the first major single-author narrative history to appear for several decades. In this volume, Kenny tells the fascinating story of the development of philosophy in the modern world, from the early nineteenth century to the end of the millennium.