Antonio Gramsci is one of the major social and political theorists of the 20th century whose work has had an enormous influence on several fields, including educational theory and practice. Gramsci and Education demonstrates the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's thought for contemporary educational debates. The essays are written by scholars located in different parts of the world, a number of whom are well known internationally for their contributions to Gramscian scholarship and/or educational research. The collection deals with a broad range (...) of topics, including schooling, adult education in general, popular education, workers' education, cultural studies, critical pedagogy, multicultural education, and the role of intellectuals in contemporary society. (shrink)

John Yolton seeks to allow readers of Locke to have accessible in one volume sections from a wide range of Locke's books, structured so that some of the interconnections of his thought can be seen and traced. Although Locke did not write from a system of philosophy, he did have in mind an overall division of human knowledge. The readings begin with Locke's essay on Hermeneutics and the portions of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding on how to read a (...) text. The reset of the selections are organized around Locke's division of human knowledge into natural science, ethics, and the theory of signs. Yolton's introduction and commentary explicate Locke's doctrines and provide the reader with the general background knowledge of other seventeenth-century writers and their works necessary to an understanding of Locke and his time. (shrink)

The Companion focusses on the international intellectual movement of the Enlightenment, and the individuals who shaped it. A number of substantial essays survey the main topics of dictionaries, encyclopedias, art, music and theatre, while central philosophical concepts such as human nature are also examined. Specialized topics receive short definitions and there are several hundred biographies. Chronology. 100 halftones. Bibliographies. Index.

In his contribution to Human Senses and Perception, R. J. Hirst has made a number of important suggestions about perceptual consciousness, He has emphasised the need to describe ‘what the percipient is or may be conscious of’ from the percipient's own point of view. This mode of description is contrasted with stimulus or neurological description. Perceptual consciousness of one object is distinguished from perceptual consciousness of another object ‘only by or on the evidence of, the person concerned’. The method of (...) obtaining descriptions of perceptual consciousness is either to question a percipient or to reflect on our own experience, The second important point stressed by Hirst is that the end product of perceiving is ‘the conscious experience of external objects’. Such an obvious point is often lost sight of in behavioural, dispositional, or neurophysiological analyses, The third and final suggestion made by Hirst to which I want to call attention is the usefulness of a genetic hypothesis to explain and account for perceptual consciousness. Hirst feels that perceptual consciousness is ‘unanalysable at the conscious level’, meaning that it is ‘a unitary awareness of objects or scenes’ and that the ‘various interacting unconscious activities’ which coexist with awareness ‘cannot be brought forward into consciousness’. The various analytical theories of perception have been designed to break perceptual consciousness into its components. This has resulted in their being false to perceptual consciousness. A genetic explanation of awareness has several advantages, prime among them being its ability to explain the complexity and development of awareness. (shrink)

John Carroll undertakes a careful philosophical examination of laws of nature, causation, and other related topics. He argues that laws of nature are not susceptible to the sort of philosophical treatment preferred by empiricists. Indeed he shows that emperically pure matters of fact need not even determine what the laws are. Similar, even stronger, conclusions are drawn about causation. Replacing the traditional view of laws and causation requiring some kind of foundational legitimacy, the author argues that these phenomena are (...) inextricably intertwined with everything else. This distinctively clear and detailed discussion of what it is to be a law will be valuable to a broad swathe of philosophers in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of science. (shrink)

First published in 1942, Reflections documents the life of John Henry Muirhead and the philosophical age that he observed. The first part of the volume derives from Muirhead’s own autobiographical narrative, left unfinished when he died in May 1940. The second part features two final chapters written by John W. Harvey that comprehensively record the final stages of Muirhead’s life. Harvey’s chapters incorporate Muirhead’s unfinished final years of commentary and begin at the man’s retirement from Birmingham Chair in (...) 1921. As a student and teacher of philosophy, Muirhead’s life ran almost precisely parallel to what he himself refers to as ‘one of the most vivid and important movements in British and American philosophy’. He came into contact with some of the age’s primary thinkers and as such, his own autobiography is important in providing an insight into his contemporary philosophical environment. (shrink)

The concept of the "locus of control" is one of the most influential in all of the psychological sciences. Initially proposed by Julian Rotter in 1966, the year 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of this remarkable breakthrough, subsequently inspiring thousands of research studies in the human sciences - research that has only served to deepen the utility of this amazing concept. Edited by John W. Reich and Frank J. Infurna, Perceived Control: Theory, Research, and Practice in the First 50 (...) Years commemorates this important anniversary by featuring contributions from leading figures of the time - some of whom were there at the very beginning of Rotter's breakthrough - to give readers a valuable historical record and measuring stick to illustrate how far we've come. Other contributors to this volume expertly present contemporary and cutting-edge summaries of the current state of our knowledge all while giving us a roadmap for future developments and directions. What have these developments revealed about basic human strengths and capacities? Why has this concept proven so remarkably effective in illuminating our everyday life in sickness and health? Perceived Control is a fascinating work that incorporates research from Rotter's original concept, and addresses many of the leading comparable concepts that have since evolved: self-efficacy, personal mastery, competence, primary and secondary control, and more specific topics such as health locus of control, learned helplessness, and other heuristic concepts discussed in many different fields of psychology and the allied disciplines. As Perceived Control skillfully attests, Rotter's work continues to thrive, leaving little doubt that its influence will endure for another half century of more. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's Metaphysics offers a radical new interpretation of the fundamental ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein. It takes issue with the conventional view that after 1930 Wittgenstein rejected the philosophy of the Tractatus and developed a wholly new conception of philosophy. By tracing the evolution of Wittgenstein's ideas, Cook shows that they are neither as original nor as difficult as is often supposed. Wittgenstein was essentially an empiricist, and the difference between his early views (as set forth in the Tractatus) and the (...) later views (as expounded in the Philosophical Investigations) lies chiefly in the fact that after 1930 he replaced his early version of reductionism with a subtler version. So he ended where he began, as an empiricist armed with a theory of meaning. This iconoclastic interpretation is sure to influence all future study of Wittgenstein and will provoke a reassessment of the nature of his contribution to philosophy. (shrink)

George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel has seldom been considered a major figure in the history of logic. His two texts on logic, both called The Science of Logic, both written in Hegel's characteristically dense and obscure language, are often considered more as works of metaphysics than logic. But in this highly readable book, John Burbidge sets out to reclaim Hegel's Science of Logic as logic and to get right at the heart of Hegel's thought. Burbidge examines the way Hegel moves (...) from concept to concept through every chapter of his work, and traces the origins of Hegel's effort to "think through the way thought thinks" to Plato, Kant, and Fichte. Having established the framework of Hegel's logical thought, Burbidge demonstrates how Hegel organized the rest of his system, including the Philosophy of Nature, Philosophy of Spirit and his Lectures on World History, Art, Religion and Philosophy. A final section discusses English-language interpretations of Hegel's logic from the nineteenth through twentieth centuries. Burbidge's The Logic of Hegel's 'Logic' is written with an eye to the reader of general interests, avoiding as much as possible the use of Hegel's technical vocabulary. It is an excellent introduction to an otherwise very difficult text, and has recently appeared in an Iranian translation. (shrink)

In this book, John W. Woell shows us how contemporary readings of American Pragmatism founded on mistakenly used categories of the Analytic tradition have led to misreadings of Peirce and James. By focusing on terms drawn largely from Descartes and Kant, contemporary debates between metaphysical realists, antirealists, Realists and Nonrealists, have, argues Woell, failed to shed great light on pragmatism in general and a pragmatic philosophy of religion in particular. Woell contends that paying close attention to the internal relationships (...) among inquiry, belief, and their objects in the respective works of Peirce and James provides a means for fully appreciating pragmatism's richness as a resource for philosophy of religion. By taking account of a pragmatic point of view in philosophy of religion, this book incites a more productive discussion of the metaphysical status of religious objects and of the epistemic status of religious belief. (shrink)

When the Senate released its so-called "Torture Report" in December 2014 the world would learn that, for years, the CIA had used unimaginably brutal methods to interrogate its prisoners - often without yielding any useful or truthful information. The agency had long and adamantly defended its use of torture, staunchly arguing that it was not only just but necessary for the country's safety. And even amid the revelations of the report, questions abound about whether torture can be considered a justifiable (...) tool of national security. Is interrogational torture an effective method of extracting information? How good does the information extracted need to be for the torture to be considered successful? How often or how vigorously must torture be used to achieve valuable information? It may be the case that interrogational torture can never be justified under any circumstances, but, according to John Schiemann, if it is to be justified at all, it must be effective. According to more than one national poll, most Americans do believe that torture can work, and that it can be justified under certain circumstances. But if the information that torturers extract is bad, then the method amounts to nothing more than pure sadism. So, how can we solve the dilemma over whether to torture or not to torture? In this book, John Schiemann takes a truly unique approach to the question of torture: game theory. Thinking of torture as a "game" played between an interrogator and a detainee, the book walks the reader through the logic of interrogational torture, comparing the outcomes to the claims made by torture proponents. The book draws on a wide variety of sources ranging from records of the Inquisition to secret CIA memos to trace this logic, illustrating each outcome of the model with a narrative from the real world of interrogational torture. Does Torture Work? is an absorbing and provocative take on one of the most discussed human rights and security dilemmas of our time. (shrink)

As a subject of inquiry, laws of nature exist in the overlap between metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Over the past three decades, this area of study has become increasingly central to the philosophy of science. It also has relevance to a variety of topics in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and epistemology. Readings on Laws of Nature is the first anthology to offer a contemporary history of the problem of laws. The book is organized around three (...) key issues: the matter of distinguishing laws from mere correlations, questions concerning inductive reasoning and laws, and the consideration of whether there are any true laws in science. Designed for class use, the anthology covers a remarkably broad range of views and concerns, and consists exclusively of articles that have proved highly influential in the field. Readings on Laws of Nature will also serve as a valuable research and reference tool for philosophers who do not specialize in the subject, but who have occasion to examine concepts relating to the laws of nature in their own work. (shrink)