Best of
Philosophy

1985

Man & Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body


Pope John Paul II - 1985
    A Preface by Cardinal Schönborn, a Foreword by Christopher West, a comprehensive index of words and phrases, a Scriptural index, and a reference table for other versions of the papal texts are included. Recipient of a CPA Award!

Islam and the Destiny of Man


Charles Le Gai Eaton - 1985
    The author, a former member of the British Diplomatic Service, was brought up as an agnostic and embraced Islam at an early age after writing a book (commissioned by T.S. Eliot) on Eastern religions and their influence upon Western thinkers. As a Muslim he has retained his adherence to the perennial philosophy which, he maintains, underlies the teachings of all the great religions.The aim of this book is to explore what it means to be a Muslim, a member of a community which embraces a quarter of the world's population and to describe the forces which have shaped the hearts and the minds of Islamic people. After considering the historic confrontation between Islam and Christendom and analysing the difference between the three monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the author describes the two poles of Muslim belief in terms of 'Truth' and 'Mercy'--the unitarian truth which is the basis of the Muslim's faith and the mercy inherent in this truth. In the second part of the book he explains the significance of the Qur'an and tells the dramatic story of Muhammad's life and of the early Caliphate. Lastly, the author considers the Muslim view of man's destiny, the social structure of Islam, the role of art and mysticism and the inner meaning of Islamic teaching concerning the hereafter.Throughout this book the author is concerned not with the religion of Islam in isolation, but with the very nature of religious faith, its spiritual and intellectual foundations, and the light it casts upon the mysteries and paradoxes of the human condition.

Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern


Douglas R. Hofstadter - 1985
    Hofstadter's collection of quirky essays is unified by its primary concern: to examine the way people perceive and think.

Krishna: The Man and his Philosophy


Osho - 1985
    White contains all the colors of the spectrum yet it seems to be colourless; it contains all these colours in such synthesis that they all disappear.

Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927–1939


Georges Bataille - 1985
    The French surrealist continues to be important for his groundbreaking focus on the visceral, the erotic, and the relation of society to the primeval. This collection of prewar writings remains the volume in which Batailles's positions are most clearly, forcefully, and obsessively put forward. This book challenges the notion of a "closed economy" predicated on utility, production, and rational consumption, and develops an alternative theory that takes into account the human tendency to lose, destroy, and waste. This collection is indispensible for an understanding of the future as well as the past of current critical theory.Georges Bataille (1897-1962), a librarian by profession, was founder of the French review Critique. He is the author of several books, including Story of the Eye, The Accused Share, Erotism, and The Absence of Myth.

Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen


DōgenLew Richmond - 1985
    Moon in a Dewdrop contains the key essays of the great master, as well as extensive background materials that will help Western readers to approach this significant work. There is also a selection of Dogen's poetry, most of which has not appeared in English translation before.Dogen's thought runs counter to conventional logic, employing paradoxical language and startling imagery. It illuminates such fundamental concerns as the nature of time, existence, life, death, the self, and what is beyond self.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business


Neil Postman - 1985
    In this eloquent, persuasive book, Neil Postman alerts us to the real and present dangers of this state of affairs, and offers compelling suggestions as to how to withstand the media onslaught. Before we hand over politics, education, religion, and journalism to the show business demands of the television age, we must recognize the ways in which the media shape our lives and the ways we can, in turn, shape them to serve out highest goals.

Be As You Are


Ramana Maharshi - 1985
    This recent collection of conversations between him and the many seekers who came to his ashram for guidance contains the essence of his teaching. His concern throughout his long life of imparting his experience to others was to convince his listeners that self-realisation – or enlightenment – is not an alien or mysterious state, but the natural condition of man. This state can be easily discovered by undertaking the self-investigation clearly described in these talks. The lucid instructions to each section provide further illumination of this greater seer’s message.

The Ending of Time


Jiddu Krishnamurti - 1985
    Krishnamurti and David Bohm probe such questions as ‘why has humanity made thought so important in every aspect of life? How does one cleanse the mind of the ‘accumulation of time’ and break the ‘pattern of ego -centered activity’?The Ending of Time concludes by referring to the wrong turn humanity has taken, but does not see this as something from which there is no escape. There is an insistence that mankind can change fundamentally; but this requires going from one’s narrow and particular interests toward the general, and ultimately moving still deeper into that purity of compassion, love and intelligence that originates beyond thought, time, or even emptiness.

The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World


Elaine Scarry - 1985
    The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vocabularies and cultural forces--literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious--that confront it. Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Kissinger, She weaves these into her discussion with an eloquence, humanity, and insight that recall the writings of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre. Scarry begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain enormously difficult to describe in words--confronted with it, Virginia Woolf once noted, "language runs dry"--it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme instances to an inarticulate state of cries and moans. Scarry analyzes the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of torture and warfare, and shows how to be fictive. From these actions of "unmaking" Scarry turns finally to the actions of "making"--the examples of artistic and cultural creation that work against pain and the debased uses that are made of it. Challenging and inventive, The Body in Pain is landmark work that promises to spark widespread debate.

In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave


Peter Singer - 1985
     Exciting new collection edited by controversial philosopher Peter Singer, who made animal rights into an international concern when he first published In Defence of Animals and Animal Liberation over thirty years ago Essays explore new ways of measuring animal suffering, reassess the question of personhood, and draw highlight tales of effective advocacy Lays out "Ten Tips for Activists", taking the reader beyond ethical theory and into the day-to-day campaigns for animal rights

The Great Thoughts


George Seldes - 1985
    Clarke give us a glimpse into the future.  Gloria Steinem and Monique Wittig define the motives and the goals of late twentieth-century feminism.  Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, and Wallace Stegner ponder the meaning of wilderness in an increasingly populated and industrialized world.  These and scores of other thinkers in all major disciplines have added their voices to this new edition of The Great Thoughts.USA Today praised the first edition of The Great Thoughts as "a browser's delight."  The work of a lifetime, brought up-to-date to reflect the global upheaval of the past decade, The Great Thoughts stands alone as an enduring achievement and an invaluable resource.

On the Plurality of Worlds


David Kellogg Lewis - 1985
    Lewis argues that the philosophical utility of modal realism is a good reason for believing that it is true.

Filters Against Folly: How to Survive Despite Economists, Ecologists, and the Merely Eloquent


Garrett Hardin - 1985
    In Filters Against Folly, Garrett Hardin shows how the filters of literacy—understanding what words really mean, numeracy—being able to quantify information, and ecolacy—assessment of complex interactions over time, can allow us to make sensible judgments about ecological issues.

Into the Universe of Technical Images


Vilém Flusser - 1985
    First published in German in 1985 and now available in English for the first time, Into the Universe of Technical Images outlines the history of communication technology as a process of increasing abstraction.Flusser charts how communication evolved from direct interaction with the world to mediation through various technologies. The invention of writing marked one significant shift; the invention of photography marked another, heralding the current age of the technical image. The automation of the processing of technical images carries both promise and threat: the promise of freeing humans to play and invent and the threat for networks of automation to proceed independently of humans.

Introduction to the Middle Way: Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara with Commentary by Ju Mipham


Candrakīrti - 1985
    This book includes a verse translation of the Madhyamakavatara by the renowned seventh-century Indian master Chandrakirti, an extremely influential text of Mahayana Buddhism, followed by an exhaustive logical explanation of its meaning by the modern Tibetan master Jamgön Mipham, composed approximately twelve centuries later. Chandrakirti's work is an introduction to the Madhyamika teachings of Nagarjuna, which are themselves a systematization of the Prajnaparamita, or "Perfection of Wisdom" literature, the sutras on the crucial but elusive concept of emptiness. Chandrakirti's work has been accepted throughout Tibetan Buddhism as the highest expression of the Buddhist view on the sutra level. With Jamgön Mipham's commentary, it is a definitive presentation of the wisdom of emptiness, a central theme of Buddhist teachings. This book is a core study text for both academic students and practitioners of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism.

Speech Genres and Other Late Essays


Mikhail Bakhtin - 1985
    This is the last of Bakhtin's extant manuscripts published in the Soviet Union. All but one of these essays (the one on the Bildungsroman) were written in Bakhtin's later years and thus they bear the stamp of a thinker who has accumulated a huge storehouse of factual material, to which he has devoted a lifetime of analysis, reflection, and reconsideration.

Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions


Josephine Donovan - 1985
    It chronicles a renaissance of feminist theory through the so-called third wave of the present day, which follows significant "waves" of earlier periods: the fifteenth through early eighteenth centuries as well as the more widely recognized nineteenth century; and the 1960s through the 80s.

Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time


Reinhart Koselleck - 1985
    Koselleck explores the concept of historical time by posing the question: What kind of experience is opened up by the emergence of modernity? Koselleck explores the concept of historical time by posing the question: what kind of experience is opened up by the emergence of modernity?

The Tao of Leadership: Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching Adapted for a New Age


John Heider - 1985
    This book provides the most simple and clear advice on how to be the very best kind of leader: be faithful, trust the process, pay attention, and inspire others to become their own leaders. Heider's book is a blend of practical insight and profound wisdom, offering inspiration and advice.

The Dialectical Biologist


Richard Levins - 1985
    Whether they realize it or not, scientists always choose sides. The Dialectical Biologist explores this political nature of scientific inquiry, advancing its argument within the framework of Marxist dialectic. These essays stress the concepts of continual change and codetermination between organism and environment, part and whole, structure and process, science and politics. Throughout, this book questions our accepted definitions and biases, showing the self-reflective nature of scientific activity within society.

Philosophy of Liberation


Enrique Dussel - 1985
    In 'Philosophy of Liberation,' he presents a profound analysis of the alienation of peripheral peoples resulting from the imperialism of the center for more than five centuries. Dussel's aim is to demonstrate that the center's historic cultural, military, and economic domination of poor countries is 'philosophically' founded on North Atlantic onthology. By expressing supposedly universal knowledge, European philosophies, argues Dussel, have served to equate the cultural standards, modes of behavior, and rationalistic orientation of the West with human nature and to condemn the unique characteristics of peripheral peoples as nonbeing, nothing, chaos, irrationality. Hence, Western philosophies have historically legitimated and hidden the domination that oppressed cultures have suffered at the hands of the center. Dussel probes multinational corporations, the communications media, and the armies of the center with their counterparts among the Third World elite. The creation of a just world order in the future, according to Dussel, hinges on the liberation of the periphery, based on a philosophy that is able to think the world from the perspective of the poor and to reclaim the Third World's distinct cultural inheritance, which is imbedded in the popular cultures of the poor. Apart from the liberation of the periphery, there will be no future: the center will feed itself on the sameness it has ingrained within itself. The death of the child, of the poor, will be its own death. This is a disquieting but stimulating book for scholars and advanced students of philosophy, ethics, liberation theology, and global politics.

Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy


Stanislav Grof - 1985
    After three decades of extensive research on those non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by psychedelic drugs and by other means, Grof concludes that our present scientific world view is as inadequate as many of its historical predecessors. In this pioneering work, he proposes a new model of the human psyche that takes account of his findings.Grof includes in his model the recollective level, or the reliving of emotionally relevant memories, a level at which the Freudian framework can be useful. Beyond that is perinatal level in which the human unconscious may be activated to a reliving of biological birth and confrontation with death. How birth experience influences an individual's later development is a central focus of the book.The most serious challenge to contemporary psycho-analytic theory comes from a delineation of the transpersonal level, or the expansion of consciousness beyond the boundaries of time and space.Grof makes a bold argument that understanding of the perinatal and transpersonal levels changes much of how we view both mental illness and mental health. His reinterpretation of some of the most agonizing aspects of human behavior proves thought provoking for both laypersons and professional therapists.

Historical Consciousness: The Remembered Past


John Lukacs - 1985
    Consciously or not, history has become a form of thought applied to every facet of human experience; every field of human action can be studied, described, or understood through its history. In this extraordinary analysis of the meaning of the remembered past, John Lukacs discusses the evolution of historical consciousness since its first emergence about three centuries ago.

The Rajneesh Bible


Osho - 1985
    It is as if he has drawn a sword and slices through the deceit of history. Man, his politics and so-called religions all come under the scalpel of Osho's master surgery. Responding to questions solely from his disciples, Osho exposes the psychology of all creeds based on the idea of "following" and takes apart the whole question of belief in God. He also answers questions such as whether he considers himself to be a messiah, and lambastes the attitude of traditional holy men towards women. He lets us in on his understanding of the political mind-set; how he feels about communism, why his sannyasins lead such a rich life and whether they are brainwashed or hypnotized, and much, much more.

Philosophy and the Real World: An Introduction to Karl Popper


Bryan Magee - 1985
    His publications include Men of Ideas (1982), The Great Philosophers (1988), and (with Martin Milligan) On Blindness (1995). He has held visiting fellowships at Yale and Oxford Universities, among others. He has been Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the History of Ideas at King's College, London since 1984, and he is an Honorary Fellow at Keble College, Oxford.

Philosophical Papers: Volume 1, Human Agency and Language


Charles Taylor - 1985
    A selection of his published papers is presented here in two volumes, structured to indicate the direction and essential unity of the work. He starts from a polemical concern with behaviourism and other reductionist theories (particularly in psychology and the philosophy of language) which aim to model the study of man on the natural sciences. This leads to a general critique of naturalism, its historical development and its importance for modern culture and consciousness; and that in turn points, forward to a positive account of human agency and the self, the constitutive role of language and value, and the scope of practical reason. The volumes jointly present some two decades of work on these fundamental themes, and convey strongly the tenacity, verve and versatility of the author in grappling with them. They will interest a very wide range of philosophers and students of the human sciences.

A History of Philosophy 4-6


Frederick Charles Copleston - 1985
    Volume V covers British philosophy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, marked by such giants as Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, as well as other movements of far-reaching significance. Copleston takes up the eighteenth-century continental philosophers in Volume VI - beginning with the French Enlightenment (including Fontenelle, Helvétius, Robinet, Rousseau) and then going to the German Enlightenment (which includes the work of Lessing and Wolff) and finally to an intense treatment of Immanuel Kant.These individual volumes have been hailed as "profound and well organized ... a remarkable accomplishment [marked by] dispassionate objectivity ... a magnificent survey." Now available as a three-in-one paperback, it will be welcomed by students and scholars of modern philosophy as a reference work that no library should be without.

The Collected Works of Spinoza, Volume I


Baruch Spinoza - 1985
    Also included are Spinoza's letters from the periods when these works were being written.The elaborate editorial apparatus--including prefaces, notes, glossary, and indexes--assists the reader in understanding one of the world's most fascinating, but also most difficult, philosophers. Of particular interest is the glossary-index, which provides extensive commentary on Spinoza's technical vocabulary.A milestone of scholarship more than forty-five years in the making, The Collected Works of Spinoza is an essential edition for anyone with a serious interest in Spinoza or the history of philosophy.

Beyond Within: Philosophy for the Inner Life


Sri Chinmoy - 1985
    Full description

Philosophical Papers: Volume 2, Philosophy and the Human Sciences


Charles Taylor - 1985
    A selection of his published papers is presented here in two volumes, structured to indicate the direction and essential unity of the work. He starts from a polemical concern with behaviourism and other reductionist theories (particularly in psychology and the philosophy of language) which aim to model the study of man on the natural sciences. This leads to a general critique of naturalism, its historical development and its importance for modern culture and consciousness; and that in turn points, forward to a positive account of human agency and the self, the constitutive role of language and value, and the scope of practical reason. The volumes jointly present some two decades of work on these fundamental themes, and convey strongly the tenacity, verve and versatility of the author in grappling with them. They will interest a very wide range of philosophers and students of the human sciences.

The Philosophy of Language


A.P. Martinich - 1985
    This revised edition collects forty-one of the most important articles in the field, making it the most up-to-date and comprehensive volume on the subject. The fourth edition features several new articles including influential work by Bertrand Russell, John R. Searle, John Perry, Ruth Garrett Millikan, and John Stuart Mill. Other selections include classic articles by such distinguished philosophers as Gottlob Frege, P. F. Strawson, J. L. Austin, Hilary Putnam, and David Kaplan. The selections represent evolving and varying approaches to the philosophy of language, with many articles building upon earlier ones or critically discussing them. Eight sections cover the central issues: Truth and Meaning; Speech Acts; Reference and Descriptions; Names and Demonstratives; Propositional Attitudes; Metaphor; Interpretation and Translation; and The Nature of Language. The revised general introduction and introductions to each section give students background to the issues and explain the connections between them. A list of suggested further reading follows each section.

A History of Philosophy 1-3


Frederick Charles Copleston - 1985
    Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Zeno, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Medieval philosophy is the scope of Volume II, which includes the contributions of such eminent philosophers as Augustine, St. Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, Boethius, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus. Volume III focuses on the philosophy of the later Middle Ages and early Renaissance through a close study of such thinkers as William of Ockham, Nicholas of Cusa, the speculative mystics, the political philosophers – e.g. Machiavelli and Thomas More – Francis Bacon, and Francis Suárez.These individual volumes have been hailed as “accurate and authoritative ... sufficiently complete syntheses ... warmly recmmended ... a remarkable achievement.” Now available as a three-in-one paperback, it will be welcomed by students and scholars of ancient and medieval philosophy as a reference work that no library should be without.

The Stellar Man (Hermetic Philosophy, Bk. 2)


John Baines - 1985
    He explains that the only possibility for freedom from this perpetual slavery consists in transcending oneself to finally cut the cord that connects us to this central computer.

The Five Senses: A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies


Michel Serres - 1985
    Exploring the deleterious effects of the systematic downgrading of the senses in Western philosophy, Michel Serres — a member of the Académie Française and one of France's leading philosophers — traces a topology of human perception. Writing against the Cartesian tradition and in praise of empiricism, he demonstrates repeatedly, and lyrically, the sterility of systems of knowledge divorced from bodily experience. The fragile empirical world, long resistant to our attempts to contain and catalog it, is disappearing beneath the relentless accumulations of late capitalist society and information technology. Data has replaced sensory pleasure, we are less interested in the taste of a fine wine than in the description on the bottle's label. What are we, and what do we really know, when we have forgotten that our senses can describe a taste more accurately than language ever could?

A History of Philosophy 7-9


Frederick Charles Copleston - 1985
    Volume VII considers such world-famous modern Western philosophers as Fichte, Schelling, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Schopenhauer Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Volume VIII, on British empiricism, the idealist movement in Great Britain, idealism in America, the pragmatist movement, and the revolt against idealism, covers such thinkers as Bentham, Herbert Spencer, T. H. Green, Bradley, Bosanquet, Royce, C. S. Peirce, William James, G. E. Moore, John Dewey, and Bertrand Russell. Volume IX presents the prominent French philosophical thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with full attention to the themes of human freedom and man in society - including Maine de Biran, Comte, Henri Bergson, Garrigou-Lagrange, and Sartre.These individual volumes have been hailed as "objective, yet critical. . . significant. . . clear-sighted. . . intelligent. . . unrivalled." Now available as a three-in-one paperback, it will be welcomed by new and seasoned students and scholars of modern philosophy as a reference work that no library should be without.

Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy


Bernard Williams - 1985
    In this book he delivers a sustained indictment of systematic moral theory from Kant onward and offers a persuasive alternative.Kant's ideas involved a view of the self we can no longer accept. Modern theories such as utilitarianism and contractualism usually offer criteria that lie outside the self altogether, and this, together with an emphasis on system, has weakened ethical thought. Why should a set of ideas have any special authority over our sentiments just because it has the structure of a theory? How could abstract theory help the individual answer the Socratic question "How should I live?"Williams's goal is nothing less than to reorient ethics toward the individual. He accuses modern moral philosophers of retreating to system and deserting individuals in their current social context. He believes that the ethical work of Plato and Aristotle is nearer to the truth of what ethical life is, but at the same time recognizes that the modern world makes unparalleled demands on ethical thought. He deals with the most thorny questions in contemporary philosophy and offers new ideas about issues such as relativism, objectivity, and the possibility of ethical knowledge. Williams has written an imaginative, ingenious book that calls for philosophers to transcend their self-imposed limits and to give full attention to the complexities of the ethical life.

Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview


Albert M. Wolters - 1985
    Wolters spells out the structure of a reformational worldview and its significance for those who seek to follow the Scriptures. Wolters begins by defining the nature and scope of a worldview, distinguishing it from philosophy or theology, and noting that the Christian community has advanced a variety of worldviews. He then outlines a Reformed analysis of the three fundamental turning points in human history – Creation, the Fall, and Redemption – concluding that while the Fall might reach into every corner of the world, Christians are called to participate in Christ's redemption of all creation.

Realism and the Aim of Science: From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery


Karl Popper - 1985
    The Postscript is the culmination of Popper's work in the philosophy of physics and a new famous attack on subjectivist approaches to philosophy of science.Realism and the Aim of Science is the first volume of the Postcript. Popper here formulates and explains his non-justificationist theory of knowledge: science aims at true explanatory theories, yet it can never prove, or justify, any theory to be true, not even if is a true theory. Science must continue to question and criticise all its theories, even those that happen to be true. Realism and the Aim of Science presents Popper's mature statement on scientific knowledge and offers important insights into his thinking on problems of method within science.

The Society of Mind


Marvin Minsky - 1985
    Mirroring his theory, Minsky boldly casts The Society of Mind as an intellectual puzzle whose pieces are assembled along the way. Each chapter -- on a self-contained page -- corresponds to a piece in the puzzle. As the pages turn, a unified theory of the mind emerges, like a mosaic. Ingenious, amusing, and easy to read, The Society of Mind is an adventure in imagination.

Vision: A Personal Call to Create a New World


Ken Carey - 1985
    'Ken Carey is one of the great living teachers… Read him, and you'll have hope.'MARIANNE WILLIAMSONThis is the acclaimed second book in Ken Carey's bestselling 'Starseed ' series, which concludes with 'The Third Millennium'

Questions to a Zen Master: Political and Spiritual Answers from the Great Japanese Master


Taisen Deshimaru - 1985
    True religion is the highest Way, the absolute Way: zazen."Here, Deshimaru, the author of True Zen, offers practical suggestions for developing unitary mind-body consciousness through the principles of zazen (translated literally as "seated meditation"). Advice is given on posture, breathing, and concentration, and concepts such as karma and satori are clearly explained.

Wine Of Endless Life: Taoist Drinking Songs from the Yuan Dynasty


J.P. Seaton - 1985
    Seaton's colloquial English renderings are a sheer pleasure to read, so much so that the reader is apt to forget he is enjoying translations..."--Choice

Philosophy of Education


Leonard Peikoff - 1985
    Leonard Peikoff's 1985 course lectures on the Philosophy of Education.

Insight Outlook


Albert Hofmann - 1985
    Albert Hofmann, one of this century's greatest minds, offers a lifetime of insights, observations, and discussions. He leads us on an exploration of reality perception, where our newly discovered insights are drawn into intellectual meditation. Reality is approached as a combination of subjective and objective truths, which must be unified for ultimate awareness. This amazing book will expand your mind and lift you to a level where the material and spiritual aspects of your life exist in harmony.

The Natural Alien


Neil Evernden - 1985
    Beginning with a simple definition of environmentalists as "those who confess a concern for the non-human," he reviews what is inherent in industrial societies to make them so resistant to the concerns of environmentalists. His analysis draws on citing such diverse sources as Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, and TIME, and examines how we tend to think about the world and how we might think about it.The book does not offer solutions to environmental questions, but it does offer the hope that there can be new ways of thinking and flexibility in human/environmental relations. Although humans seem alienated from our the natural world, we can develop a new understanding of self in the world.'The second edition has a new preface and an epilogue in which Evernden analyses the latest environmental catch-phrase: sustainable development.

Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America


James C. Turner - 1985
    But atheism emerged as a viable alternative to other ideologies. How and why it became possible is the subject of this cultural revolution.

Medieval Cosmology: Theories of Infinity, Place, Time, Void, and the Plurality of Worlds


Pierre Duhem - 1985
    By reconsidering the work of such Arab and Christian scholars as Averroes, Avicenna, Gregory of Rimini, Albert of Saxony, Nicole Oresme, Duns Scotus, and William of Occam, Duhem demonstrated the sophistication of medieval science and cosmology.

Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle


Ibn Rushd - 1985
    This translation of Averroes’ Long Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima brings to English-language readers the complete text of this influential work of medieval philosophy. Richard C. Taylor provides rich notes on the Long Commentary and a generous introduction that discusses Averroes’ most mature reflections on Aristotle’s teachings as well as Averroes' comprehensive philosophical views on soul and intellect. It is only in the Long Commentary that Averroes finally resolves to his satisfaction the much vexed issue of the nature of intellect, Taylor shows.

The Structure of Empirical Knowledge


Laurence BonJour - 1985
    For the foundationalist like Descartes each piece of knowledge can be stacked to build a pyramid. Not so, argues Laurence BonJour. What looks like a pyramid is in fact a dead end, a blind alley. Better by far to choose the raft.Here BonJour sets out the most extensive antifoundationalist argument yet developed. The first part of the book offers a systematic exposition of foundationalist views and formulates a general argument to show that no variety of foundationalism provides an acceptable account of empirical justification. In the second part he explores a coherence theory of empirical knowledge and argues that a defensible theory must incorporate an adequate conception of observation. The book concludes with an account of the correspondence theory of empirical truth and an argument that systems of empirical belief which satisfy the coherentist standard of justification are also likely to be true.

Correspondence, 1926-1969


Hannah Arendt - 1985
    It is interrupted by Arendt's emigration and Jaspers's "inner emigration, " and it is resumed immediately after World War II. The initial teacher-student relationship develops into a close friendship, in which Jasper's wife, Gertrud, is soon included and then Arendt's husband, Heinrich Blucher. These letters show not only the way both philosophers lived, thought, and worked but also how they experienced the postwar years. Since neither ever dreamed that this correspondence would be published, and each had absolute trust in the other, they reveal themselves here - for the first time - in a personal and spontaneous way. Brilliant, vulnerable, forthright, Arendt speaks about America, her adopted country. About American universities, American politics from McCarthyism to Kennedy, American urban decay. She speaks about Germany, the country she left: its anti-Semitism, its guilt for the Holocaust, its politics. And about Israel, which she always supported as a Jew but also criticized, especially in her controversial book about the trial and execution of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. In his dialogue with Arendt, the thoughtful, generous, concerned Jaspers considers the question of the German essence, and of the Jewish character. He speaks about philosophers past and present - Spinoza, Heidegger. About old age and retirement. Corrupt journalism. Suicide. Man's future on this planet. Here is a fascinating dialogue between a woman and a man, a Jew and a German, a questioner and a visionary, both uncompromising in their examination of our troubledcentury.

Abe: Zen and Western Thought


Masao Abe - 1985
    Book by Masao Abe

All I Want is a Warm Bed and a Kind Word and Unlimited Power: Even More Brilliant Thoughts


Ashleigh Brilliant - 1985
    . . illustrated epigrams that will inspire your personal quest for telling communication. Fresh, funny, wistful, bright; they may well reflect some of your own deep or whimsical thoughts. Ashleigh's Pot Shots are acclaimed, told and re-told, by young and old, secular and religious, mainstream and offbeat they speak to everyone. What they say: Clifton Fadiman: Most enjoyable; Isaac Asimov: Good one-liners; Richard Armour: Wise, and witty; People magazine: Artistic trailblazer, Ashleigh Brilliant coins epigrams that would drive Oscar wild. Ashleigh's Pot Shots are copyrighted and the names Pot Shots and Brilliant Thoughts are registered trademarks.

Lazarus, Come Forth!: Meditations of a Christian Esotericist on the Mysteries of the Raising of Lazarus, the Ten Commandments, the Three Kingdoms & the Breath of Life


Valentin Tomberg - 1985
    The power of these meditations is that they reflect the author's personal spiritual journey into the depths of God's kingdom within--within the soul, within personal relationships, within nature and the cosmos. Part one of Lazarus, Come Forth! --"The Miracle of Raising Lazarus in World History"--looks at an encounter with the Father through the miracles of Creation and the Fall and through Moses and the Old Testament Covenant and the Ten Commandments. Part two, "The Ten Commandments: The Revelation on Mt. Sinai," is a meditation on the seven miracles of Christ as described in the Gospel of St. John, culminating in the raising of Lazarus, the miracle of being raised from forgetfulness, sleep, and death to remembrance, wakefulness, and resurrection. Lazarus thus becomes a paradigm for understanding the spiritual and cultural history of humanity. In part three, "Thy Kingdom Come: The Three Kingdoms of Nature, Humanity, and God," we consider the encounter with the Holy Spirit and living out the life of Christ through the Church. We are asked to reflect on the three kingdoms of God, humankind, and nature, which give natural order and meaning to the Christian life.The union of love and prayer in the Spirit is the focus of the first section of part four, "The Breath of Life," in which we are invited to see our natural breathing as breathing the breath of God. And part four ends with "Natural and Supernatural Images of the Holy Trinity," which discusses the message of the starry heaven at night, the message of the setting Sun, and the message of the birth of a new day. This volume should not be missed by anyone with a serious interest in esoteric Christianity or who merely wishes to go more deeply into the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. A previous edition of this work was titled Covenant of the Heart. It is a translation of Lazarus, komm heraus. The translation has been fully revised.

Essays in the Philosophy of History


R.G. Collingwood - 1985
    

Epistles of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership


Maimonides - 1985
    These letters represent Maimonide’s response to three issues critical to Jews in his day and ours; religious persecution, the claims of Christianity and Islam and rational philosophy’s challenge to faith.

Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical, And Methodological Foundations


Robert Rosen - 1985
    

Judaism Beyond God (Library of Secular Humanistic Judaism)


Sherwin T. Wine - 1985
    It provides new answers to old questions - questions about the essence of Jewish identity, about the real meaning of Jewish history, the significance of the Jewish personality, and, not least, it includes questions about the nature of Jewish ethics. It also provide a radical new way of being Jewish - new ways of celebrating Jewish holidays and ceremonies of the Jewish life cycle, a new approach to dealing with intermarriage and conversion, a new way of reinforcing Jewish identity.

The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 3: Ion, Hippias Minor, Laches, Protagoras


Plato - 1985
    Allen's superb new translations of four Socratic dialogues—Ion, Hippias Minor, Laches, and Protagoras—bring these classic texts to life for modern readers. Allen introduces and comments on the dialogues in an accessible way, inviting the reader to reexamine the issues continually raised in Plato's works.In his detailed commentary, Allen closely examines the major themes and central arguments of each dialogue, with particular emphasis on Protagoras. He clarifies each of Plato's arguments and its refutation; places the themes in historical perspective; ties each theme to interpretations of rival translations; and links the philosopher's thought to trends in late modern philosophy. Topics discussed include: whether virtue is an art, whether wisdom and courage are logically equivalent, whether virtue is knowledge, and whether to know the good is to do it. Allen connects his discussion of these issues to the Benthamite tradition of hedonism and utilitarianism and to the ethical theories of Mill, Sidgwick, Moore, and Freud.

Metaphor and Religious Language


Janet Martin Soskice - 1985
    The author argues that what is needed is not a more literal theology, but a better understanding of metaphor. Soskice offers here an account of metaphor and religious language that not only illuminates the way in which theists speak of God, but also contributes to our understanding of the workings of metaphor in scientific theory and other disciplines.

Nietzsche: Life as Literature


Alexander Nehamas - 1985
    His most famous views--the will to power, the eternal recurrence, the �bermensch, the master morality--often seem incomprehensible or, worse, repugnant. Yet he remains a thinker of singular importance, a great opponent of Hegel and Kant, and the source of much that is powerful in figures as diverse as Wittgenstein, Derrida, Heidegger, and many recent American philosophers.Alexander Nehamas provides the best possible guide for the perplexed. He reveals the single thread running through Nietzsche's views: his thinking of the world on the model of a literary text, of people as if they were literary characters, and of knowledge and science as if they were literary interpretation. Beyond this, he advances the clarity of the concept of textuality, making explicit some of the forces that hold texts together and so hold us together. Nehamas finally allows us to see that Nietzsche is creating a literary character out of himself, that he is, in effect, playing the role of Plato to his own Socrates.Nehamas discusses a number of opposing views, both American and European, of Nietzsche's texts and general project, and reaches a climactic solving of the main problems of Nietzsche interpretation in a step-by-step argument. In the process he takes up a set of very interesting questions in contemporary philosophy, such as moral relativism and scientific realism. This is a book of considerable breadth and elegance that will appeal to all curious readers of philosophy and literature.

Gateway to the Talmud


Meir Zvi Bergman - 1985
    A leading rosh yeshivah traces the origin and development of the Mishnah, Tosefta, Gemara, the Rabbanan Savorai and the Geonim; tranlations of Talmudic terms; the guideline for deciding halachah in Talmudic disputes.

Educational Wastelands: The Retreat from Learning in Our Public Schools


Arthur Eugene Bestor - 1985
    

Under the Teaching Tree


Terence McKenna - 1985
    

John Ruusbroec: The Spiritual Espousals, the Sparkling Stones, and Other Works


Jan van Ruusbroec - 1985
    The Christian Century John Ruusbroec: The Spiritual Espousals, The Sparkling Stones, and Other Works translated and introduced by James A. Wiseman, O.S.B. preface by Louis Dupre God's interior stirring and touch make us hunger and strive, for the Spirit of God is pursuing our spirit. The more there is of the touch, the more there is of the hunger and striving. This is a life of love at the highest level of its activity. John Ruusbroec (1293-1381) The fourteenth century in Europe has been called the age of adversity. It was a time when medieval society was racked by the Hundred Years' War, the Black Death, and peasant turmoil of the age, saw the decline of its mendicant orders, the Babylonian Captivity of the papacy in Avignon, and the rise of wide-ranging heretical movements such as the Free Spirit heresy that disparaged the Church and its sacraments in favor of an immediate experience of God. In this context John Ruusbroec (1293-1381) lived as a monk in the duchy of Brabant and produced a corpus of works on the spiritual life that has made him the most important Flemish mystic in an age of such greats as John Tauler, Julian of Norwich, and Birgitta of Sweden. For the first time in English, four of Ruusbroec's most influential writings have been collected in one volume: The Spiritual Espousals, A Mirror of Eternal Blessedness, The Little Book of Clarification, and The Sparkling Stone. This new translation by James Wiseman offers a fresh, contemporary rendering of Ruusbroec's brilliant discourses that caused Abbot Cuthbert Butler to comment that in all probability...there has been no greater contemplative; and certainly there has been no greater mystical writer. +

Popper Selections


Karl Popper - 1985
    David Miller, a leading expositor and critic of Popper's work, has chosen thirty selections that illustrate the profundity and originality of his ideas and their applicability to current intellectual and social problems. Miller's introduction demonstrates the remarkable unity of Popper's thought and briefly describes his philosophy of critical rationalism, a philosophy that is distinctive in its emphasis on the way in which we learn through the making and correcting of mistakes.Popper has relentlessly challenged both the authority and the appeal to authority of the most fashionable philosophies of our time. This book of selections from his nontechnical writings on the theory of knowledge, the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and social philosophy is imbued with his emphasis on the role and by reason in exposing and eliminating the errors among them.

Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy


Gottlob Frege - 1985
    Widely published on logic, analysis, geometry, and arithmetic, which he regarded as the purest form of thought, Frege's analytic approach to philosophy set the stage for the field's eventual linguistic turn. Collected Paper on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy is a compilation of his collected works across fields, allowing readers to share in his evolution of thought and catch a glimpse of a legendary mind at work.

Alien Powers: The Pure Theory of Ideology


Kenneth Minogue - 1985
    Alien Powers: The Pure Theory of Ideology takes this complex intellectual construction apart, analyzing its logical, rhetorical, and psychological devices and thus opening it up to critical analysis.Ideologists assert that our lives are governed by a hidden system. Minogue traces this notion to Karl Marx who taught intellectuals the philosophical, scientific, moral, and religious moves of the ideological game. The believer would find in these ideas an endless source of new liberating discoveries about the meaning of life, and also the grand satisfaction of struggling to overcome oppression. Minogue notes that while the patterns of ideological thought were consistent, there was little agreement on who the oppressor actually was. Marx said it was the bourgeoisie, but others found the oppressor to be males, governments, imperialists, the white race, or the worldwide Jewish conspiracy.Ideological excitement created turmoil in the twentieth century, but the defeat of the more violent and vicious ideologies--Nazism after 1945 and Communism after 1989--left the passion for social perfection as vibrant as ever. Activist intellectuals still seek to see through the life we lead. The positive goals of utopia may for the moment have faded, but the ideological hatred of modernity has remained, and much of our intellectual life has degenerated into a muddled and dogmatic skepticism. For Minogue, the complex task of demystifying the demystifiers requires that we should discover how ideology works. It must join together each of its complex strands of thought in order to understand the remarkable power of the whole.

Idea of Prose


Giorgio Agamben - 1985
    In this book, thought seeks a new form, a new "prose". To this end, it brings into play the strategies of the apology, the aphorism, the short story, the fable, the riddle, and all those "simple forms" that are today no longer used, but whose task it has always been to bring about in the reader an experience, an awakening--rather than attempting to put forth a theory. It is only in this sense--insofar as thought contends with the exposition of an Idea--that the problem of "thought" becomes, in these "treatises," a poetic problem. These are little ideas or forms that, in their brevity, compress that which cannot in any way be forgotten, since according to the platonic admonition, it would be put in "the shortest possible measure".

Cassirer, Symbolic Forms and History


John Michael Krois - 1985
    

Elements of Hindu Iconography: Vol. 1 & 2


T.A. Gopinatha Rao - 1985
    The book is in two volumes, each volume again in two parts. Vol. I, Part I contains a long Introduction discussing among other things the origin of Hindu image worship in India, explanatory description of the terms employed in the work, Ganapati, Visnu and his major and minor avataras and manifestations, Garuda and Ayudha-Purushas or personified images of the weapons and emblems held by gods. Vol. I, Part II deals with Aditya and Nava Grahas (nine planets) and their symbolic features and images worshipped, Devi (Goddesses), Parivara-devatas, and measurement of proportions in images. Vol. II, Part I begins with an Introduction discussing the cult of Siva which is followed by such important topics as Siva, Lingas, Lingodbhavamurti, Chandrasekharamurti, Pasupatamurti and Raudrapasupatamurti, other Ugra forms of Siva, Dakshinamurti, Kankalamurti and Bhikshatanamurti, and other important aspects of Siva. Vol. II, Part II contains descriptions of Subrahmanya, Nandikesvara and Adhikaranandi, Chandesvara, Bhaktas, Arya or Hariharaputra, Kshetrapalas, Brahma, the Dikpalakas, and demi-gods. In addition the book contains 5 Appendices including Sanskrit texts of Parivaradevatah, Uttamadasatalavidhih and Pratimalaksanani.The treatment has been made interesting by profuse illustrations, the two volumes containing as many as 282 photographs of sacred images.

Death and Consciousness


David H. Lund - 1985
    

Existential and Ontological Dimensions of Time in Heidegger and Dogen


Steven Heine - 1985
    And both reorient our understanding of all phases of existence and experience in terms of time and temporality, death and dying, and finitude and impermanence.Heine provides new insight into Dogen's philosophy as seen in the "Uji" chapter of Dogen's Shorogenzo.The book features a new annotated translation of the "Uji" and a glossary of Japanese terms.

The Roots of Wisdom: Saikontan


Hung Ying-Ming - 1985
    

Samadhi: Self Development in Zen, Swordsmanship, and Psychotherapy (SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology)


Mike K. Sayama - 1985
    1986 SUNY

Art and Psyche: A Study in Psychoanalysis and Aesthetics


Ellen Handler Spitz - 1985
    The first considers the relations between an artist’s life and work; the second focuses on the work of art itself; and the third encompasses the intricate relations between a work of art and its audience or beholders. To illustrate her theoretical discussion, Spitz draws on a variety of art forms, including painting, sculpture, literature, music, and dance. “No one who is concerned with the psychoanalytic study of art can afford to neglect [this book]; no one who cares about the art of psychoanalysis should ignore it.”—Aaron H. Esman, M.D., Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association “This book … should prove fascinating to all who are concerned with works of art as expressions of the human mind and heart.”—Shehira Davezac, Hospital and Community Psychiatry “This book is highly recommended to all who enjoy the multiple applications of analytic thought to extend our senses.”—Jay Lefer, Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis Ellen Handler Spitz holds degrees in art history, aesthetics, and education from Barnard College, Harvard University, and Columbia University. She was trained as a special candidate at the Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, Columbia University.

The Travail of Nature


H. Paul Santmire - 1985
    This is why it is appropriate to speak of the ambiguous ecological promises of Christian theology.

The I AM Discourses (Vol 11)


Comte de Saint-Germain - 1985
    

Selected Writings: Essays in the History of Liberty


John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton - 1985
    . . is itself the highest political end." The unifying theme of these essays is Lord Acton's concept of liberty. Included are his two famous essays on the history of freedom ("The History of Freedom in Antiquity" and "The History of Freedom in Christianity") as are writings on the tradition of liberty in England, America, and Europe.

Wildcat Anarchist Comics


Donald Rooum - 1985
    Political satire at its finest.

Tree of Life


George Washington Carey - 1985
    An expose of physical regenesis on the threefold plane of bodily, chemical & spiritual operation. For those interested in Homeopathy & Cell Salts. Contents: Wonders and Possibilities of the Human Body, The Bridge of Life, Optic Thalmus, A Vision of Immortality. -- from publisher's synopsis

Masks of the Universe: Changing Ideas on the Nature of the Cosmos


Edward Harrison - 1985
    Philosophical issues dominated cosmology in the ancient world. Theological issues ranked foremost in the Middle Ages; astronomy and the physical sciences have taken over in more recent times. Yet every attempt to grasp the true nature of the universe creates a new mask, People have always pitied the universes of their ancestors, believing that their generation has at last discovered the real universe. Do we now stand at the threshold of knowing everything, or have we created yet another mask, doomed to fade like those preceding ours? Edward Harrison is Adjunct Professor of Astronomy, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, and Emeritus Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He worked as a scientist for the Atomic Energy Research Establishment and the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory in England until 1966 when he became a Five College professor at the University of Massachusetts and taught at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith College. He is the author of numerous books, including Cosmology: the Science of the Universe (Cambridge, 2001)

Karl Marx


Allen W. Wood - 1985
    Wood explains Marx's views from a philosophical standpoint and defends him against common misunderstandings and criticisms. All the major philosophical topics in Marx's work are considered: the central concept of alienation; historical materialism and Marx's account of social classes; the nature and social function of morality; philosophical materialism and Marx's atheism; and Marx's use of the Hegelian dialectical method and the Marxian theory of value.

Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics: A Commentary


Harold Joachim - 1985
    H. Joachim on the subject of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics.

Global Dilemmas


Samuel P. Huntington - 1985
    Some issues carry over from themes that have been central to the Center's research programs since its founding; other issues represent the evolution of new areas of interest and concern. Divided into three parts: Part I: Ethics and Politics in Foreign Policymaking; Part II: Security Dilemmas of the Nuclear Age; Part III: The Interplay of Economics and Politics in Industrial Democracies. Co-published with the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.

The Last Testament, Vol 1


Osho - 1985
    The discourses listed as being titled "The Last Testament, Vol 1" are titled that way on the tape. The book "The Last Testament, Vol 1" contains a different numbering scheme, as it contains interviews selected from the whole Ranch period. Volumes 2, 3 and 4 (as numbered on the tapes) will probably never be published as such. All other series in the database have been numbered and titled as in the books they appear in, this will not be so for the Last Testament series, they will take their numbering from the original numbers given them.

The Origins of Natural Science: (Cw 326)


Rudolf Steiner - 1985
    Through this, Steiner shows the significance of scientific research and the mode of thinking that goes with it. As we look at what technology has brought us, we may have a feeling like the pain we feel over the death of a loved one. According to Steiner, this feeling of loss will eventually become our most important stimulation to seek the spirit.This book is a translation from German of Der Entstehungsmoment der Naturwissenschaft in der Weltgeschichte und ihre seitherige Entwicklung (GA 326).

Moses in the Bulrushes


Elaine Ife - 1985
    

Nietzsche, Volume 3: The Will to Power as Knowledge and as Metaphysics


Martin Heidegger - 1985
    

Consciousness and the Voices of the Mind


Julian Jaynes - 1985
    

Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China


Chung Kuan - 1985
    645 B.C.), the Guanzi is one of the largest collections of ancient Chinese writings still in existence. With this volume, W. Allyn Rickett completes the first full translation of the Guanzi into English. This represents a truly monumental effort, as the Guanzi is a long and notoriously difficult work. It was compiled in its present form about 26 B.C. by the Han dynasty scholar Liu Xiang and the surviving text consists of some seventy-six anonymous essays dating from the fifth century B.C. to the first century B.C.The forty-two chapters contained in this volume include several which present Daoist theories concerning self-cultivation and the relationship between the body and mind as well as the development of Huang-Lao political and economic thought. The "Dizi zhi" chapter provides one of the oldest discussions of education in China. The "Shui di" chapter refers to the circulation of blood some two thousand years before the discoveries of William Harvey in the West. Other chapters deal with various aspects of statecraft, Yin-Yang and Five Phases thought, folk beliefs, seasonal calendars, and farming. Perhaps the best-known chapters are those that deal with various methods of controlling and stimulating the economy. They constitute one of the world's earliest presentations of a quantity theory of money. Throughout the text, Rickett provides extensive notes. He also supplies an introduction to the volume and a comprehensive index.

Exploring Christian Holiness, Volume 3: Theological Formulation


Richard Shelley Taylor - 1985
    It takes up the present theological formulation of the doctrine. Cloth.

The Ultimate Canon of Knowledge


Alvin Boyd Kuhn - 1985
    

James Madison on Religious Liberty


Robert S. Madison - 1985
    This image of our nation, existing without these two foundations of freedom, justice, and inquiry, assaults the imagination, for these two documents are the fuel that runs the republic.What is even more remarkable is that their primary author was one man - James Madison.James Madison On Religious Liberty is the definitive work of scholarship in its field, and will lay to rest any questioning of Madison's enormous historical stature. The essays are exhaustive in scope - many appear here for the first time in published form - and they include all of the available scholarship on Madison's religious writings.Alley provides more than 65 pages of source material, including "Memorial and Remonstrance," probably the single most important statement of religious liberty ever written; the Virginia Declaration of Rights; selections from his correspondence with Thomas Jefferson and William Bradford; and other writings.Among the distinguished contributors are Daniel J. Boorstein, the late Sam Ervin, Jr., Robert A. Rutland, A.E. Dick Howard, Henry Steele Commager, Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., and Dumas Malone.This volume makes clear the wisdom and courage Madison invested in his writings. He was fully aware that all our freedoms flow from religious liberty, as religious liberty is really the freedom of inquiry.

Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature


Philip Kitcher - 1985
    It raises the "sociobiology debate" to a new level, moving beyond arguments about the politics of the various parties involved, the degree to which sociobiology assumes genetic determinism, or the falsifiability of the general theory. Sociobiology has made a great deal of noise in the popular intellectual culture. Vaulting Ambition cuts through the charges and counter-charges to take a hard look at the claims and analyses offered by the sociobiologists. It examines what the claims mean, how they relate to standard evolutionary theory, how the biological models are supposed to work, and what is wrong with the headline-grabbing proclamations of human sociobiology. In particular, it refutes the notions that humans are trapped by their evolutionary biology and history in endlessly repeating patterns of aggression, xenophobia, and deceitfulness, or that the inequities of sex, race, and class are genetically based or culturally determined. And it takes up issues of human altruism, freedom, and ethics as well.Kitcher weighs the evidence for sociobiology, for human sociobiology, and for "the pop sociobiological view" of human nature that has engendered the controversy. He concludes that in the field of nonhuman animal studies, rigorous and methodologically sound work about the social lives of insects, birds, and mammals has been done. But in applying the theories to human beings-where even more exacting standards of evidence are called for because of the potential social disaster inherent in adopting a working hypothesis as a basis for public policy - many of the same scientists become wildly speculative, building grand conclusions from what Kitcher shows to be shoddy analysis and flimsy argument. While it may be possible to develop a genuine science of human behavior based on evolutionary biology, genetics, cognition, and culture, Kitcher points out that the sociobiology that has been loudly advertised in the popular and intellectual press is not it. Pop sociobiology has in fact been felled by its overambitious and overreaching creators.

The Category Of The Person


Michael Carrithers - 1985
    Yet the way in which the category of the person is conceived varies over time and space. In this volume, anthropologists, philosophers, and historians examine the notion of the person in different cultures, past and present. Taking as their starting point a lecture on the person as a category of the human mind, given by Marcel Mauss in 1938, the contributors critically assess Mauss's speculation that notions of the person, rather than being primarily philosophical or psychological, have a complex social and ideological origin. Discussing societies ranging from ancient Greece, India, and China to modern Africa and Papua New Guinea, they provide fascinating descriptions of how these different cultures define the person. But they also raise deeper theoretical issues: What is universally constant and what is culturally variable in people's thinking about the person? How can these variations be explained? Has there been a general progressive development toward the modern Western view of the person? What is distinctive about this? How do one's notions of the person inform one's ability to comprehend alternative formulations? These questions are of compelling interest for a wide range of anthropologists, philosophers, historians, psychologists, sociologists, orientalists, and classicists. The book will appeal to any reader concerned with understanding one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence.

Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank


E. James Lieberman - 1985
    This first complete biography exposes the hostile, at times even libelous treatment of Rank in the standard histories so psychoanalysis and shows him to be one of the great analytic pioneers of this century.

Renewal of Social Organism


Rudolf Steiner - 1985
    Social health depends on the harmonious interworking of these three activities, which, Steiner says, is possible only if they are sufficiently autonomous so each can find its own essential character. In his foreword, Joseph Weizenbaum observes that the framers of the U.S. Constitution understood this, at least in part, when they developed the constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state.These essays cover a range of issues with special attention to money, the division of labor, human motivation, and education. They offer refreshing insights into the nature of modern society as well as guidance for solving today's pressing social problems.

Discrete Thoughts: Essays on Mathematics, Science and Philosophy


Mark Kac - 1985
    To be sure, our store of accurate facts is more plentiful now than it has ever been, and the minutest details of history are being thoroughly recorded. Scientists, - men and scholars vie with each other in publishing excruciatingly definitive accounts of all that happens on the natural, political and historical scenes. Unfortunately, telling the truth is not quite the same thing as reciting a rosary of facts. Jos6 Ortega y Gasset, in an adm- able lesson summarized by Antonio Machado's three-line poem, prophetically warned us that the reason people so often lie is that they lack imagination: they don't realize that the truth, too, is a matter of invention. Sometime, in a future that is knocking at our door, we shall have to retrain ourselves or our children to properly tell the truth. The exercise will be particularly painful in mathematics. The enrapturing discoveries of our field systematically conceal, like footprints erased in the sand, the analogical train of thought that is the authentic life of mathematics. Shocking as it may be to a conservative logician, the day will come when currently MATHEMATICS, IN vague concepts such as motivation and purpose will be made formal and accepted as constituents of a revamped logic, where they will at last be allotted the equal status they deserve, si- by-side with axioms and theorems.

The Individual and the Political Order: An Introduction to Social and Political Philosophy


Norman E. Bowie - 1985
    This thoroughly revised edition challenges its readers to respond critically to a sustained defense of liberalism.