First published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

Early versions of satellite and radiosonde datasets suggested that the tropical surface had warmed more than the troposphere, while climate models consistently showed tropospheric amplification of surface warming in response to human-caused increases in greenhouse gases. We revisit such comparisons here using new observational estimates of surface and tropospheric temperature changes. We find that there is no longer a serious discrepancy between modeled and observed trends in the tropics. Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in (...) the tropical troposphere are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets and on two methodological errors: the neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability and application of an inappropriate statistical “consistency test”.This emerging reconciliation of models and observations has two primary explanations. First, because of changes in the treatment of buoy and satellite information, new surface temperature datasets yield slightly reduced tropical warming relative to earlier versions. Second, recently developed satellite and radiosonde datasets now show larger warming of the tropical lower troposphere. In the case of a new satellite dataset from remote sensing systems, enhancedRSS warming is due to an improved procedure of adjusting for inter-satellite biases. When the RSS-derived tropospheric temperature trend is compared with four different observed estimates of surface temperature change, the surface warming is invariably amplified in the tropical troposphere, consistent with model results. Even if we use data from a second satellite dataset with smaller tropospheric warming than in remote sensing systems RSS, observed tropical lapse rates are not significantly different from those in all model simulations.Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in the tropical troposphere and in tropical lapse rates are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets and on two methodological errors: the neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability and application of an inappropriate statistical “consistency test”. (shrink)

Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from a large archive of computer model simulations, a consortium of scientists from 12 different institutions has resolved a long-standing conundrum in climate science—the apparent discrepancy between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics. Research published by this group indicates that there is no fundamental discrepancy between modeled and observed tropical temperature trends when one accounts for: the uncertainties in observations; and the statistical uncertainties in estimating trends from observations. These results refute a (...) recent claim that model and observed tropical temperature trends “disagree to a statistically significant extent”. This claim was based on the application of a flawed statistical test and the use of older observational datasets. (shrink)

Reflecting Subjects is an important and timely book, both as a piece of Hume interpretation and as a work of philosophy more generally. Let me begin with the first. It has increasingly become a commonplace in Hume interpretation that the passionate and social dimensions of human life play an unusually fundamental role in Hume's philosophy. But we are only beginning to appreciate the significance of this side of Hume in a systematic way. It is precisely here that Taylor focuses (...) her attention, providing us with a... (shrink)

First published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In A Secular Age, Taylor introduces the idea of porous subjectivity by way of elucidating the mode of being typical of the enchanted pre-modern world, and juxtaposes it to the buffered self typical of the disenchanted modern world. The framing of the problem in this way, with the argument so clearly oriented as an attack on the latter position, risks a polarization that defaults to the former as the preferred option. These, though, are not our only choices. There is (...) much to recommend Taylor’s notion of porous subjectivity as distinct from the buffered self of atomistic individualism. But Taylor associates the emergence of the disenchanted world with disengaged reason, and the existence of an enchanted world with a deeper mode of engagement in the world. If we instead focus upon modes of engagement with the world separate from the question of enchantment, we can perhaps further our understanding of human subjectivity and relations with others. (shrink)

First published in 1965. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book grapples with these perennial questions, primarily through a dialogue with Cornelius Castoriadis and Charles Taylor, using an interdisciplinary ...

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Despite his own observations that autonomy is never complete, never once-and-for-all — in short, that autonomy is always relatively more-or-less; or rather, human subjects, institutions and societies can only ever be more-or-less autonomous, and thus more-or-less heteronomous — Castoriadis nevertheless polarizes autonomy and heteronomy. From the polarized perspective, then, he maintains that religion is intrinsically heteronomous, and thus intrinsically antithetical to the project of autonomy. By exploring Taylor's more nuanced understanding of the varieties of religious experience, I argue in (...) this article that there must be room for religious belief within an autonomous society, and that religiosity per se is not incompatible with the project of creating an autonomous society. (shrink)

This study applies Charles Taylor's theory of disengaged reasoning to the 'malaise of modernity' and how it relates to religious belief. The relationship between disengaged and engaged modes of being are examined.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This 20 volume Routledge Revivals collection brings together a selection of groundbreaking Philosophy titles, from the rich and diverse Routledge backlist. With titles published between 1933 and 1991, this is a truly wide-ranging selection, encompassing works by distinguished authors such as: Simone Weil, Hilary Putnam, Franz Brentano, Anthony Kenny, Karl Jaspers and Israel Scheffler. Dealing with everything from the notion of freewill, to concepts of time and space, to theories of morality, this set offers a collection of the best (...) of Routledge publishing in the field of Philosophy from across the Twentieth Century. Please note that all titles have been previously available for sale individually through the Routledge Revivals programme. (shrink)

This volume of Hume Studies is a special double-issue devoted to discussions of four recent books on Hume: Hume: an Intellectual Biography, by James Harris; Imagined Causes: Hume's Conception of Objects, by Stefanie Rocknak; Hume's True Scepticism, by Donald Ainslie; and Reflecting Subjects: Passion, Sympathy, and Society in Hume's Philosophy, by Jacqueline Taylor. The latter three discussions began as Author-Meets-Critics sessions at the 43rd International Hume Conference in Sydney, Australia, and the present volume keeps the AMC format: each discussion (...) starts with a short précis of the book from the author, followed by comments from three respondents, and concludes with the author's reply. The selection of books... (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es poner de manifiesto la relevancia del legado filosófico de Karl-Otto Apel a la luz del diálogo con la ética de Charles Taylor. Nos detenemos en los últimos libros publicados de Charles Taylor y ensayamos una interpretación crítica de sus tesis a partir de la pragmática trascendental de Apel. Hundiendo sus raíces en la matriz hermenéutica y crítica, la ética del discurso de Karl-Otto Apel sigue ofreciendo una dialéctica fecunda entre realidad (...) e idealidad que resulta insoslayable para afrontar con garantías el futuro de la humanidad. The aim of this paper is to highlight the relevance of the philosophical legacy of Karl-Otto Apel in light of the dialogue with the philosophy of Charles Taylor. The paper is focused on the last published books of Charles Taylor and a critical interpretation of some of his main ideas from the Apel’s transcendental pragmatics is addressed. Plunging its roots in the hermeneutic and critical matrix, Karl-Otto Apel's ethic of discourse continues to offer a fruitful dialectic between reality and ideality that is unavoidable to face the future of humanity with guarantees. (shrink)

First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Summary This article presents and compares aspects of Charles Taylor's and Hans Blumenberg's seemingly opposing views about agency and epistemology, setting them in the context of the tradition in German ideas called ?philosophical anthropology?, with which both align their thinking. It presents key strands of this tradition, from their inception in the late eighteenth century in the writings of Herder, Schiller and others associated with anthropology to their articulation by thinkers such as Max Scheler, Arnold Gehlen and Karl (...) Löwith in the early twentieth century. The main issues here are: man's status as part of nature or as ?radically divorced? from nature; the possibility of objective knowledge of man versus the epistemological status of human ?meaning?; the view of knowledge as abstraction versus ?concrete? or ?lived? experience. Within these parameters the article contrasts Taylor's emphasis on ?engaged? agency, embedded in discourses, bodies and predispositions, with Blumenberg's sense of our ?indirect? relation to reality: ?delayed, selective, and above all ?metaphorical??. It concludes that each position may be traced back to a key strand in philosophical anthropology: the one emphasising man's unique freedom, the other that sees man's grasp of reality as uniquely interwoven with a background of meanings. (shrink)

Regardless of one’s particular philosophical interests and convictions, it is evident that the notion of autonomy is an important one. However, agreement about the nature of autonomy and about what it requires has proven elusive in contemporary discussions. In Kant and the Fate of Autonomy Karl Ameriks addresses this impasse by going back to the historical roots of this notion in Kant and arguing that many contemporary conceptions of autonomy are based on misunderstandings of Kant’s position, misunderstandings that first (...) arose in his immediate successors, Reinhold, Fichte, and Hegel. However, Ameriks does not aim merely to set the historical record straight; he wants to suggest that Kant’s actual position on autonomy is much more attractive philosophically than either what he refers to as “pure Kantian” conceptions or positions that are similar in basic respects to those of Rorty, Taylor, Larmore, and other post-Kantians. That Ameriks is able to combine remarkable sensitivity toward an extremely broad range of obscure texts with striking clarity and philosophical sophistication in evaluating the positions and arguments laid bare by his exegetical analyses makes his book an extraordinarily rich contribution to our contemporary philosophical landscape. (shrink)

The discipline of musicology, like the word itself which the Oxford English Dictionary dates only back to 1909 (or even 1915), is a twentieth-century, specifically Anglo-American, institution echoing the tradition of French musicologie and with analogies to German Musikwissenschaft. As a modern and ineluctably postmodern project, musicology derives from a predominantly Austro-German generation of scholars who translated a continentally European tradition of analysis (Heinrich Schenker and, in London, Donald Francis Tovey and Hans Keller) and formal music theory (routinely articulated by (...) then-contemporary new composers: Arnold Schoenberg, Rudolf Réti, and Theodor Adorno, as well as Karl-Heinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez) into English language university contexts. (shrink)

Inspired by Charles Taylor’s locating of Herder and Rousseau’s “expressivism” in Marx’s understanding of the human as artist, I begin this essay by examining expressivism in Taylor, followed by its counterpart in M. H. Abrams’s work, namely the wind as metaphor in British Romantic poetry. I then further explore this expressivism/wind connection in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” and Marx’s The German Ideology. Ultimately I conclude that these expressive winds lead to poetic gesture per se, (...) and thereby, to a kind of poetry at the heart of Marx’s philosophy. (shrink)

Charles Taylor; X*—The Validity of Transcendental Arguments, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1 June 1979, Pages 151–166, https://do.

Mark Lloyd Taylor in God is Love: A Study in the Theology of Karl Rahner charges that Rahner’s understanding of the essential immutability of God renders his theology incoherent. For Taylor, Rahner’s assertion of God’s essential immutability prevents him from cartying through in a consistent manner the methodological turn to the subject which is at the heart of his theological project. An assessment of the validity of Taylor’s process-informed critique requires a careful examination of Rahner’s understanding (...) of analogy. Analogy, for Rahner is not based on a conceptual or semantic distinction but on the ontological constitution of human transcendence. From Rahner’s perspective, Taylor’s critique is faulty because it springs from an impoverished view of Being and a diminished sense of the radical nature of human transcendence. While Taylor’s critique does not undermine Rahner’s position, it alerts one to the propensity of his position to generate substantialized interpretations and, at times, Rahner’s own tendency to dissolve too quickly dialectical tensions within his position. (shrink)

This collection of four essays and an interview contains Habermas's most recent contributions to ethical theory. It expands and clarifies the work on discourse ethics presented in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Here, largely in response to criticisms from contemporary neo-Aristotelians, Habermas underscores the claim of discourse ethics to a preeminent position in contemporary moral philosophy with incisive analyses and refinements of the central concepts of his theory that include important developments in his treatment of practical reason and of the (...) problems of application and motivation.The first essay offers a comprehensive analysis of practical rationality, which establishes a clear demarcation between pragmatic, ethical, and moral questions and a corresponding differentiation between forms of volition and spheres of practical discourse. The centerpiece of the book is a multifaceted defense of the central claims of discourse ethics incorporating masterly critiques of the major competing positions, including those of John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Karl-Otto Apel, and Albrecht WellmerThe middle essays defend the basic intention of universalist moral theory in the face of the claims of the neo-Aristotelian ethics of the good and Horkheimer's skepticism toward reason that led him to embrace a religiously inspired ethic of compassion. An interview with Habermas covering such topics as the genesis of discourse ethics, the precise import of some of its more controversial elements, and its interconnections with the theory of communicative actions concludes this important collection.Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

Is it possible to say anything on the well-worn theme of human freedom or unfreedom which has not been ahready better said by someone else before us? It may be doubted; yet it is always worth while to see whether we cannot at least set what is perhaps already familiar to us in a fresh light and so come to a clearer comprehension of our own meaning. This, at any rate, is all that will be attempted in these pages; I (...) have spoken in an earlier essay of the “practical situation” in which we find ourselves whenever we have to make a decision as involving indetermination , and my purpose is simply to make it plainer to myself, and so incidentally perhaps to a reader, what I mean by such an expression. I shall start, then, by adopting what we may perhaps agree to call a phenomenological attitude to the subject; that is, I will try to describe the facts in a way which anyone who recalls occasions when he has been driven to take a decision will recognize as faithful to his experience, without imparting into the description any element of explanatory speculative hypothesis. The description is meant to be one which will be admitted to be true to the “appearances,” independently of any theory about the “freedom of the will”—to describe correctly that which it is the object of all such theories to explain. (shrink)

Despite claims from prominent scientists that SARS‐CoV‐2 indubitably emerged naturally, the etiology of this novel coronavirus remains a pressing and open question: Without knowing the true nature of a disease, it is impossible for clinicians to appropriately shape their care, for policy‐makers to correctly gauge the nature and extent of the threat, and for the public to appropriately modify their behavior. Unless the intermediate host necessary for completing a natural zoonotic jump is identified, the dual‐use gain‐of‐function research practice of viral (...) serial passage should be considered a viable route by which the novel coronavirus arose. The practice of serial passage mimics a natural zoonotic jump, and offers explanations for SARS‐CoV‐2's distinctive spike‐protein region and its unexpectedly high affinity for angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE2), as well as the notable polybasic furin cleavage site within it. Additional molecular clues raise further questions, all of which warrant full investigation into the novel coronavirus's origins and a re‐examination of the risks and rewards of dual‐use gain‐of‐function research. (shrink)

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A sequel to “A Problem of Motivation for Multipliers”, SJPhil 20, 209-24. It is argued that Goldman’s account of act and event individuation cannot be modified to escape criticisms previously raised. Augmentation generation and the counterfactual basis of the account are featured inthe discussion.