Jason Stanley presents a startling and provocative claim about knowledge: that whether or not someone knows a proposition at a given time is in part determined by his or her practical interests, i.e. by how much is at stake for that person at that time. In defending this thesis, Stanley introduces readers to a number of strategies for resolving philosophical paradox, making the book essential not just for specialists in epistemology but for all philosophers interested in philosophical methodology. (...) Since a number of his strategies appeal to linguistic evidence, it will be of great interest to linguists as well. (shrink)

This book offers philosophy in the key of life.

These lectures by one of the most influential and original philosophers of the twentieth century constitute a sustained argument for the philosophical basis of romanticism, particularly in its American rendering. Through his examination of such authors as Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, Stanley Cavell shows that romanticism and American transcendentalism represent a serious philosophical response to the challenge of skepticism that underlies the writings of Wittgenstein and Austin on ordinary language.

"This collection is obviously a labor of love. Fortunately, it is also a labor of editorial care and precision.

-/- Paperback -/- Price: $20.95/£17.99 ISBN: -/- Published: Dec 6, 2016 Copyright: 2015 Pages: 376 Size: 5.5 x 8.5 in. -/- ebook -/- Price: $20.95/£17.99 ISBN: -/- Published: Dec 6, 2016 Copyright: 2015 Pages: 376 Size: 5.5 x 8.5 in. -/- Buy This -/- Common Reading Selection Download Cover -/- Overview Author(s) Praise -/- Our democracy today is fraught with political campaigns, lobbyists, liberal media, and Fox News commentators, all using language to influence the way we think and reason about (...) public issues. Even so, many of us believe that propaganda and manipulation aren’t problems for us—not in the way they were for the totalitarian societies of the mid-twentieth century. In How Propaganda Works, Jason Stanley demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid. He examines how propaganda operates subtly, how it undermines democracy—particularly the ideals of democratic deliberation and equality—and how it has damaged democracies of the past. -/- Focusing on the shortcomings of liberal democratic states, Stanley provides a historically grounded introduction to democratic political theory as a window into the misuse of democratic vocabulary for propaganda’s selfish purposes. He lays out historical examples, such as the restructuring of the US public school system at the turn of the twentieth century, to explore how the language of democracy is sometimes used to mask an undemocratic reality. Drawing from a range of sources, including feminist theory, critical race theory, epistemology, formal semantics, educational theory, and social and cognitive psychology, he explains how the manipulative and hypocritical declaration of flawed beliefs and ideologies arises from and perpetuates inequalities in society, such as the racial injustices that commonly occur in the United States. -/- How Propaganda Works shows that an understanding of propaganda and its mechanisms is essential for the preservation and protection of liberal democracies everywhere. (shrink)

This book argues that Wittgenstein's religious thought is misunderstood by its critics, and that their misunderstandings are a result of being oblivious of ...

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were many attempts to justify political and social systems on the basis of physics and astronomy. By the early twentieth century such moves increasingly also integrated the life and social sciences. The physical sciences gradually became less appealing as a sole source for sociopolitical thought. The details of this transition help explain the contemporary reluctance to capitalize on an ostensibly rich opportunity for naturalistic social reasoning: the anthropic principle in cosmology, which deals with (...) the apparent “fine-tuning” of the universe for life. (shrink)

Although Hegel considered _Science of Logic_ essential to his philosophy, it has received scant commentary compared with the other three books he published in his lifetime. Here philosopher Stanley Rosen rescues the _Science of Logic_ from obscurity, arguing that its neglect is responsible for contemporary philosophy’s fracture into many different and opposed schools of thought. Through deep and careful analysis, Rosen sheds new light on the precise problems that animate Hegel’s overlooked book and their tremendous significance to philosophical conceptions (...) of logic and reason. Rosen’s overarching question is how, if at all, rationalism can overcome the split between monism and dualism. Monism—which claims a singular essence for all things—ultimately leads to nihilism, while dualism, which claims multiple, irreducible essences, leads to what Rosen calls “the endless chatter of the history of philosophy.” The _Science of Logic_, he argues, is the fundamental text to offer a new conception of rationalism that might overcome this philosophical split. Leading readers through Hegel’s book from beginning to end, Rosen’s argument culminates in a masterful chapter on the Idea in Hegel. By fully appreciating the_Science of Logic_ and situating it properly within Hegel’s oeuvre, Rosen in turn provides new tools for wrangling with the conceptual puzzles that have brought so many other philosophers to disaster. (shrink)

Now available in paperback, ____The Quarrel Between Philosophy__ ____and Poetry__ focuses on the theoretical and practical suppositions of the long-standing conflict between philosophy and poetry. Stanley Rosen--one of the leading Plato scholars of our day--examines philosophical activity, questioning whether technical philosophy is a species of poetry, a political program, an interpretation of human existence according to the ideas of 19th and 20th-century thinkers, or a contemplation of beings and Being.

"In The Savior of Science Jaki illumines one of the best kept secrets of science history - the role theology has historically played in fruitful scientific development." "The volume begins by portraying a most-neglected yet all-important facet of cultural history - the invariable stillbirths of science in great ancient cultures, including Greece, China, India, and the early Muslim empire. This overview provides the background for the first major thesis of the book: belief in Christ, the only begotten Son of God (...) - a belief absent in all these cultures - secured for science its only viable birth in a period beginning in the High Middle Ages." "In the second part of the book Jaki continues his critique of science history with a number of meticulously argued theses about Christian monotheism. These include the view that Christian monotheism provides intellectual safeguards for the cosmological argument (an argument powerfully supported by modern scientific cosmology), that Christian monotheism vindicates the sense of purpose destroyed by materialist theories of evolution, and that Christian monotheism secures firm ethical guidelines against fearful abuses of scientific know-how."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

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

This article has already been published in, and is available in open access from Time and Society, 0, 2017, pp. 1-29. We thank Stanley Blue for his permission to republish it here.: The practice turn in social theory has renewed interest in conceptualising the temporal organisation of social life as a way of explaining contemporary patterns of living and consuming. As a result, the interest to develop analyses of time in both practice theories and practice theory-based - Sur le (...) concept de rythme. (shrink)

Throughout the world, research ethics committees are relied on to prevent unethical research and protect research subjects. Given that reliance, the composition of committees and the manner in which decisions are arrived at by committee members is of critical importance. There have been Instances in which an inadequate review process has resulted in serious harm to research subjects. Deficient committee review was identified as one of the factors In a study in New Zealand which resulted in the suffering and death (...) of many women diagnosed with carcinoma in situ. (shrink)

Bambrough, R. Essay on man.--Quinton, A. Has man an essence?--Warnock, G. J. Kant and anthropology.--Honderich, T. On inequality and violence, and the differences we make between them.--Cherry, C. Agreement, objectivity and the sentiment of humanity in morals.--Gregory, I. Psycho-analysis, human nature and human conduct.--Gosling, J. The natural supremacy of conscience.--Scruton, R. Reason and happiness.--Wollheim, R. Needs, desires, and moral turpitude.--Hollis, M. My role and its duties.--Watkins, J. Three views concerning human freedom.--Letwin, S. R. Nature, history, and morality.--Passmore, J. Attitudes to (...) nature.--Benson, J. Hog in sloth, fox in stealth: man and beast in moral thinking.--Hare, R. Contrasting methods of environmental planning.--Self, P. Techniques and values in policy decisions. (shrink)

From a leading figure in the field of psychotherapy, this new book is the first dedicated to the topic of the fear of contamination. The fear of contamination is the driving force behind compulsive washing, the most common manifestation of obsessive compulsive disorder. It is one of the most extraordinary of all human fears. People who have an abnormally elevated fear of contamination over-estimate the probability and the potential seriousness of becoming contaminated. They believe that they are more susceptible than (...) other people to contamination. People who labour under the illusion that they are particularly vulnerable to contamination are persistently anxious, excessively vigilant and highly avoidant. The fear is complex, powerful, probably universal, easily provoked, intense, and difficult to control. Usually it is caused by physical contact with a contaminant and spreads rapidly and widely. When a person feels contaminated it drives a strong urge to remove the contamination, usually by washing. The fear and subsequent urges over-ride other behaviour. A fear of contamination can also be established mentally and without physical contact. The fear can arise after exposure to violation, physical or non-physical, and from self-contamination. The book starts by defining the disorder, before considering the various manifestations of this fear, examining both mental contamination and contact contamination, and feelings of disgust. Most significantly, it develops a theory for how this problem can be treated, providing clinical guidelines - based around cognitive behavioural techniques. (shrink)

Explores the meaning of death, how people of different times, regions, and religions have coped with it, and the progress and effects of the war waged against it by researchers, physicians, and surgeons.

Authority qua empowerment is theweak reading of authority in Hans Kelsen's writings.On the one hand, this reading appears to beunresponsive to the problem of authority as we know itfrom the tradition. On the other hand, it squares withlegal positivism. Is Kelsen a legal positivist?Not without qualification. For he defends anormativity thesis along with the separation thesis,and it is at any rate arguable that the normativitythesis mandates a stronger reading of authority thanthat modelled on empowerment. I offer, in the paper,a prima (...) facie case on behalf of a stronger reading ofauthority in Kelsen. I go on to argue, however, thatthe textual evidence weighs heavily in favour of theweak reading. Both nomostatics and nomodynamics arepervasive points of view in the Pure Theory of Law,and both reflect species of empowerment as theendpoint of Kelsen's reconstructions. (shrink)

These four volumes bring together for the first time some of the most important research on the philosophy of David Hume (1711-1776). Included topics are: Volume 1--Epistemology, Reason, Induction, Scepticism; Volume 2--Space and Time, Ontology, Causality, Personal Identity and the Self, Naturalism, Mental Activity; Volume 3--Ethics, Is/Ought, Reason and the Passions; Volume 4--Religion, Miracles, Politics, Economics, Justice as well as some miscellaneous topics. The papers have been selected for their clarity, their high quality, their originality and their lasting significance. Each (...) volume includes an extensive selected bibliography listing materials according to the topics covered in the particular volume. (shrink)

The most comprehensive compilation of the works of Abelard and Heloise ever presented in a single volume in English, _The Letters and Other Writings_ features an accurate and stylistically faithful new translation of both _The Calamities of Peter Abelard_ and the remarkable letters it sparked between the ill-fated twelfth-century philosopher and his brilliant former student and lover—an exchange whose intellectual passion, formal virtuosity, and psychological drama distinguish it as one of the most extraordinary correspondences in European history. Thanks to this (...) edition, Latin-less readers will be better placed than ever to see why this undisputed milestone in the intellectual life of medieval France is also a masterpiece of Western literature. In addition to the _The Calamities_ and the letters--the first complete English translation of all seven in more than eighty years--this volume includes an Introduction, a map, and a chronology, Abelard's _Confession of Faith_, letters between Heloise and Peter the Venerable, the Introduction to _The Questions of Heloise_, and selected songs and poems by Abelard, among them a previously untranslated shaped poem, Open Wide Your Eyes. Extracts of lost letters sometimes ascribed to Abelard and Heloise are given in appendixes. (shrink)

This famous collection of essays by Stanley Cavell explores a diverse range of issues from philosophy to music and drama.

Peter McHugh was an internationally known sociologist within the field of anti-positivist social theory. As the only collection of McHugh's sole-authored writings, Redefining the Situation presents a comprehensive yet surprising view of this key theorist's influence in his field. Redefining the Situation is a compendium of McHugh's published and unpublished short-form writings, along with three new essays on McHugh's work, one by his long-time collaborator and friend Alan Blum. The collection contributes to the project of reinventing social theory by providing (...) a new perspective from which to imaginatively rethink the development of sociology over the last fifty years. It locates McHugh's work not only within the modern and postmodern sociological tradition but also within contemporary social theory broadly, including hermeneutics, critical theory, deconstruction, and Hannah Arendt's political theory. The essays in this volume show the development of a method to analyze everyday behaviour in light of fundamental questions, exploring conflicts and connections between socialization and recidivism, fragmentation and ethnic cleansing, justice and affirmative action, teaching and university politics, and intimacy and aesthetics. This book moves beyond contemporary debates about big data/postmodernism, and along the way it identifies convergences in Anglo-American and Continental thought. By tracing the development of Analysis, the tradition of social inquiry, from its beginnings until today, Redefining the Situation re-establishes a prominent sociologist as one of the leading intellectuals in the field of interpretive social theory. (shrink)