This book explores the pervasiveness of poetry's impact on philosophy and, conversely, how philosophy has sometimes resisted or denied poetry's influence.

Author note: Raymond A. Belliotti is Professor of Philosophy at State University of New York at Fredonia.

This is a profound and concise essay on the basic structure of contemporary politics, written throughout in a voice that is sceptical, engaged, and clear.

"--Daniel Brudney, University of Chicago "The fund of information Geuss brings into his discussion of the ancients, and the verve and charm with which it is all presented, make the central chapters of this book particularly engaging.

Cet article discute quelques problèmes concernant le rapport entre foi chrétienne et sciences modernes de la nature. Il s'efforce de montrer que l'athéisme méthodique des sciences, le déterminisme naturel qu'elles impliquent, et le hasard qu'elles perçoivent dans la nature, ne doivent pas être pris dans un sens absolu, métaphysique, ce qui rendrait vaine l'idée de Dieu et de son action créatrice. Les sciences ont contribué à une meilleure compréhension de la révélation, de la bible notamment, mais elles n'ont pas mis (...) en doute les vérités essentielles de la foi. Celle-ci, de son côté, a des bonnes raisons pour attribuer la réalité du monde et de la vie humaine à une source intelligente, transcendante. (shrink)

Kant’s religious ethics is grounded in a practical philosophy where ‘God’ is subordinated to moral principles. To accomplish this goal, Kant dismantled the onto-theological groundwork of religion and the conventional method of attaching morality to God, as if morality was a consequence of religious belief. In this essay, I will show how Kant replaces the metaphysics of being with the metaphysics of morality. More importantly, I will show how Kant’s thesis of moral theism argues that the practical philosophy does not (...) end with the categorical imperative, but that Kant also thinks morality inevitably leads to religious belief. (shrink)

There is a world-wide debate at the moment about the appropriate role for the state in modern societies in the light of the world financial crisis. This book provides a comprehensive analysis and critique of Neo-liberal or economic liberal ideas on this issue.

Family Medicine first formally confronted systems thinking with the adoption of the biopsychosocial model for understanding disease in a holistic manner; this is a description of a natural system. More recently, Family Medicine has been consciously engaged in developing itself as a system for delivering health care, an artificial system. We make this new system available to all people, whether sick or well, offering to manage not just their diseases, but their lives. However, a major difference between natural and artificial (...) systems is that natural systems have smooth feedback loops to ensures homeostasis, whereas artificial systems do not. They can only adjust themselves by disruptive adaptive and renewal cycles. Further, Family Medicine aspires to base its creation of this artificial system on the key principles of Family Medicine - continuity, comprehensiveness, and compassionate care in the context of family and community. However, there are another set of principles driving the modern Family Medicine system of healthcare, principles that function like the hidden curriculum of medical education. These principles - risk thinking, health as a commodity, and individual responsibility - are part of a deeper current within healthcare called by some biomedicalization. On closer analysis, many of these characteristics are intimately tied with liberal economies that must grow. Yet this economic system is an artificial system that lacks feedback. It is imperative that we in Family Medicine reexamine our commitment to developing artificial systems. (shrink)

This edition focuses on Aron's lifelong attempt to bridge the gap between knowledge and action and to understand the dialectical relationship between history ...

Divided into two 4 volume sets, this collection aims to provide a complete guide to social theory from 1700 to the present day. Each set is divided around eight essential issues which are of core concern to social theory: {Social action and basic processes of interaction {Social institutions {Social structure {Social representations {Social change {Theoretical orientations {Problems in the philosophy of social sciences {Sociology's reflections upon itself and its relations with other social sciences The collections are designed to show how (...) thinking in social theory has changed since 1700 on all of these essential issues. The aim is to give a comprehensive and concise guide to the main issues. The editors seek to provide a collection which distils the essence of the key questions so that researchers and advanced students will need to look no further for a guide to the essentials in social theory. (shrink)

As a professional philosopher, now well past his allotted years of three-score-and-ten, I am often asked for words of wisdom about the meaning of life. Yet no sooner do I begin to answer, than I'm asked further questions--questions about God, immortality and free will. Not surprising, really, since each of these bears upon our conception of reality and of our own status and significance within it.

1. In the Essay, Locke’s most controversial claim, which he slipped into Book IV almost as an aside, was that matter might think (Locke1975:IV.iii.6;540-1).i Either because he was genuinely pious, which he was, or because he was clever, which he also was, he tied the denial that matter might think to the claim that God’s powers are limited, thus, attempting to disarm his critics. It did not work. Stillingfleet and others were outraged. If matter can think, then for explanatory purposes (...) the immaterial soul might be dispensable. But throughout the eighteenth century explanatory purposes were at the top of the agenda. And what had always made the soul so handy for proving immortality - that it is non-composite, static, and inaccessible to empirical examination - is also what made it so useless for investigating human nature. By contrast, consciousness is multifaceted, dynamic, and open to empirical investigation. Early in the century a Clarke might take the high road and resist descent into the merely probable and contingent. But when it came to investigating persons, the emerging science of human nature was the only game in town. One either played it or took oneself out of the action. (shrink)

“You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, . . . Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.” – Luis Buñuel..

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