Richard M Weaver, a thinker and writer celebrated for his unsparing diagnoses and realistic remedies for the ills of our age, is known largely through a few of his works that remain in print. This new collection of Weaver's shorter writings, assembled by Ted J Smith III, Weaver's leading biographer, presents many long-out-of-print and never-before-published works that give new range and depth to Weaver's sweeping thought. Included are eleven previously unpublished essays and speeches that were left in near-final form (...) at the time of Weaver's death in 1963. In all, there are some one hundred and twenty-six essays, speeches, book reviews, and editorials. (shrink)

Early in the first volume of his Ideen zu einer reinen Phiinomeno logie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie, Edmund Husserl stated concisely the significance and scope of the problem with which this present study is concerned. When we reflect on how it is that consciousness, which is itself absolute in relation to the world, can yet take on the character of transcendence, how it can become mundanized, We see straightaway that it can do that only by means of a certain participation in (...) transcendence in the first, originary sense, which is manifestly the transcendence of material Nature. Only by means of the experiential relation to the animate organism does consciousness become really human and animal (tierischen), and only thereby does it achieve a place in the space and in the time of Nature. l Consciousness can become "worldly" only by being embodied within the world as part of it. In so far as the world is material Nature, consciousness must partake of the transcendence of material Nature. That is to say, its transcendence is manifestly an embodiment in a material, corporeal body. Consciousness, thus, takes on the characteristic of being "here and now" (ecceity) by means of experiential (or, more accurately, its intentive) relation to that corporeal being which embodies it. Accordingly, that there is a world for consciousness is a conse quence in the first instance of its embodiment by 2 that corporeal body which is for it its own animate organism. (shrink)

This honest, forthright, and beautifully-written book introduces readers to the human variations on medical topics spoken of in abstract in the daily news--euthanasia, assisted suicide, abortion, "extreme procedures", genetic testing, experimental surgeries--and to the people who must agonize over those decisions regarding themselves and their loved ones.

Introduction -- Part I: Growth, inquiry, and unity -- Problems with inquiry -- Aesthetic inquiry -- Inquiry, inquiry, inquiry -- Why unification? -- Part II: The metaphysics of unity -- The quest for being QUA being -- Time and individuality -- The Humpty-Dumpty intuition -- The mystical.

The Argument of the "Tractatus" presents a single unified interpretation of the Tractatus based on Wittgenstein's own view that the philosophy of logic is the real foundation of his philosophical system.

The present study seeks to lay out the most basic elements of the ontology of classical Aš‘arite theology. In several cases this requires a careful examination of the traditional and the formal lexicography of certain key expressions. The topics primarily treated are: how they understood “Being/ existence” and “being/existent” and essential natures; the systematic exploitation of the equivocities of certain expressions within a general context in which other than words there are no universals proves to be elegant as well as (...) insightful; the basic categories of primary entities: independant beings and nonindependant beings, created and uncreated, the equivocity of “being/existent” as predicated of contingent entities on the one hand and of God and His attributes on the other, and certain problems that arise because of the rigid application of the system's underlying analytic principles. Nous essayons ici de presenter les éléments fondamentaux de l'ontologie de l'aš‘arisme classique. Pour quelques expressions, il a fallu examiner la lexicographie et ordinaire et technique pour bien comprendre leur emploi et leur signification. Les sujets examinés sont: le sens de “Etre/existence” et de “être/existant” et le concept de réalité essentielle; l'emploi nuancé des équivocités de quelques expressions dans un contexte où les seuls universaux sont des mots, emploi qui se révèle philosophiquement élégant; les catégories fondamentales des êtres: êtres indépendants et êtres non-indépendants, soit créés soit incréés, l'équivocité de “être/existant” dit des êtres contingents d'une part, de Dieu et ses attributs d'autre part, et enfin quelques difficultiés qui résultent de l'application rigide des principes analytiques du système. (shrink)

The essays in this collection examine developments in three fundamental biological disciplines--embryology, evolutionary biology, and genetics--in conflict with each other for much of the twentieth century. They consider key methodological problems and the difficulty of overcoming them. Richard Burian interweaves historical appreciation of the settings within which scientists work, substantial knowledge of the biological problems at stake and the methodological and philosophical issues faced in integrating biological knowledge drawn from disparate sources.

The ideas of Martin Heidegger, one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, have had a profound influence on work in literary theory and aesthetics, as well as on mainstream philosophy. This book offers a clear and concise guide to Heidegger's notoriously complex writings, while giving special attention to his major work Being and Time. Richard McDonough adds historical context by exploring Heidegger's intellectual roots in German idealism and ancient Greek philosophy, and introduces readers to the key (...) themes in Heidegger's work including Dasein, Existenz, time, conscience, death, and phenomenology. This book, which also considers Heidegger's controversial ethics and politics, would make an excellent text for both introductory and advanced undergraduate courses on existentialism, phenomenology, continental philosophy, and Heidegger himself. (shrink)

"Educating in Ethics for the Professions: A Compendium of Research, Theory, Practice, and an Agenda for the Future" offers a state-of-the-art discussion on the part of applied ("professional") ethics educators who describe the teaching of ethics for their professions and who collectively represent a wide-ranging array of professions. The volume begins with an overview of the topics, contested ideas, and challenges confronting applied ethics educators in any generation, providing a foundation from which the concept of ethics education as an integral (...) formation frames each contributor's historical overview identifying how research, theory, and practice have evolved in each profession to this day. These discussions then turn to the topics, contested ideas, and challenges emerging in contemporary discourse. Each discussion then culminates with suggestions regarding what ethics educators must consider for the future. The volume closes with a synthesis of the commonalities among and differences between the discussions representing diverse professional perspectives, yet framing this history as well as identifying an agenda for teaching applied ethics in the future. (shrink)

This 2004 book is an accessible introduction to the full range of the philosophy of William James. It portrays that philosophy as containing a deep division between a Promethean type of pragmatism and a passive mysticism. The pragmatist James conceives of truth and meaning as a means to control nature and make it do our bidding. The mystic James eschews the use of concepts in order to penetrate to the inner conscious core of all being, including nature at large. (...) class='Hi'>Richard Gale attempts to harmonize these pragmatic and mystical perspectives. This introduction is drawn from and complements the author's much more comprehensive and systematic study The Divided Self of William James, a volume that has received the highest critical praise. With its briefer compass and non-technical style this introduction should help to disseminate the key elements of one of the great modern philosophies to an even wider readership. (shrink)

On the other side of the ledger there seem to be equally powerful reasons for countenancing negative events and states. The first and foremost reason is that since every true proposition about the world supposedly corresponds with some event, there must be a negative event corresponding to every true negative proposition about the world. Second, there can be no determinate reality without negative facts, since something can be a definite individual only if it has finite boundaries, which require that it (...) is not the same as everything else. Third, change requires temporal passage consisting in the shift of the present to ever later times; however, this requires that there be a past and future, which are the no-longer and the not-yet. Fourth, we seem to perceive negative things such as lacks and absences, but whatever we perceive must exist. Fifth, for those who believe in real essences or substantial natures, there are objective teleological negations consisting in a certain kind of object not realizing all of its natural functions. And, finally, it seems to be inconsistent to say that there are no negative facts, for supposedly there will be at least one negative fact consisting in there not being any negative facts. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;The manifest image is 'a sophistication and refinement of the image in terms of which man first came to be aware of himself as man-in-the-world' and in its methodology 'limits itself to what correlational techniques can tell us about perceptible and introspectible events'. The scientific image, on the other hand, 'postulates imperceptible objects and events for the purpose of explaining correlations among perceptibles'. This thesis is centred on a (...) consideration of two difficulties facing anyone who takes the manifest image seriously as an autonomous image of man. In chapter 1 I consider the connection between perception and its objects, and argue that there is a disharmony between the manifest and scientific accounts of this connection. But I also suggest that the manifest image, which incorporates a certain Cartesianism or internalism, cannot lightly be dispensed with in our understanding of the nature of experience. In chapter 2 I argue that the manifest view of experience accords a certain metaphysical priority to secondary over primary qualities in the constitution of any world capable of being experienced; I also suggest that the scientific image is dependent on the manifest image, and so cannot subvert it. In chapter 3 I argue that free will as the incompatibilist contrues it is constitutive of the time-order; but that it carries with it implicit internal contradictions. The conflict here lies within the manifest image; the scientific image discerns no such freedom, and so incurs no such problems. I also argue that there is a relation of mutual dependence between freedom, incompatibilistically construed, and internalism. Chapter 4 shows how no parallel difficulties attend the constitution of experiential space, because space is not transcendental. In chapter 5 I examine the commitments of the notion of the transcendental self, whose existence was deduced in chapter 3 as a condition of freedom. (shrink)