Gadamer applies hermeneutical analysis to Heidegger and Husserl's phenomenology, an approach that proves critical and instructive.

    In this book Saul Kripke brings his powerful philosophic intelligence to bear on Wittgenstein's analysis of the notion of following a rule.

    Topics: elimination of metaphysics, function of philosophy, nature of philosophical analysis, the a priori, truth & probability, critique of ethics & theology, self & the common world etc.IntroductionThe elimination of metaphysicsThe function of philosophy The nature of philosophical analysisThe a priori Truth & probabilityCritique of ethics & theologyThe self & the common worldSolutions of outstanding philosophical disputesIndex

    Habermas takes up the challenge posed by the radical critique of reason in contemporary French poststructuralism. Tracing the odyssey of the philosophical discourse of modernity, Habermas's strategy is to return to those historical crossroads at which Hegel and the Young Hegelians, Nietzsche and Heidegger made the fateful decisions that led to this outcome. His aim is to identify and clearly mark out a road indicated but not taken: the determinate negation of subject-centered reason through the concept of communicative rationality. As The Theory of Communicative Action served to place this concept within the history of social theory, these lectures locate it within the history of philosophy. Habermas examines the odyssey of the philosophical discourse of modernity from Hegel through the present and tests his own ideas about the appropriate form of a postmodern discourse through dialogs with a broad range of past and present critics and theorists. The lectures on Georges Bataille, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Cornelius Castoriadis are of particular note since they are the first fruits of the recent cross-fertilization between French and German thought. Habermas's dialogue with Foucault--begun in person as the first of these lectures were delivered in Paris in 1983 culminates here in two appreciative yet intensely argumentative lectures. His discussion of the literary-theoretical reception of Derrida in America--launched at Cornell in 1984--issues here in a long excursus on the genre distinction between philosophy and literature. The lectures were reworked for the final time in seminars at Boston College and first published in Germany in the fall of 1985.

    E. Moore's defense of common sense, this much discussed volume collects Wittgenstein's reflections on knowledge and certainty, on what it is to know a proposition for sure.

    a personal confession of its creator and a kind of involuntary and unperceived memoir.". Stewart affirms this maxim in his colorful reinterpretation of the lives and works of 17th-century philosophers Spinoza and Leibniz. In November 1676, the foppish courtier Leibniz, "the ultimate insider... an orthodox Lutheran from conservative Germany," journeyed to The Hague to visit the self-sufficient, freethinking Spinoza, "a double exile... an apostate Jew from licentious Holland." A prodigious polymath, Leibniz understood Spinoza's insight that "science was in the process of rendering the God of revelation obsolete; that it had already undermined the special place of the human individual in nature." Spinoza embraced this new world. Seeing the orthodox God as a "prop for theocratic tyranny," he articulated the basic theory for the modern secular state. Leibniz, on the other hand, spent the rest of his life championing God and theocracy like a defense lawyer defending a client he knows is guilty. He elaborated a metaphysics that was, at bottom, a reaction to Spinoza and collapses into Spinozism, as Stewart deftly shows. For Stewart, Leibniz's reaction to Spinoza and modernity set the tone for "the dominant form of modern philosophy"—a category that includes Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Heidegger and "the whole 'postmodern' project of deconstructing the phallogocentric tradition of western thought." Readers of philosophy may find much to disagree with in these arguments, but Stewart's wit and profluent prose make this book a fascinating read.

    Republic is also featured in its entirety.

    Francis Bacon held some of the highest public offices in the land and in his spare time studied natural philosophy and a wide variety of other subjects. His systematic classification of all branches of knowledge became the basis for all later constructions, and his Essays are unsurpassed in their observations on society and human behavior. This extensive anthology includes the major English literary works on which his reputation rests: The Advancement of Learning, The Essays (1625, as well as the earliest version of 1597), and the posthumously published Utopian fable The New Atlantis (1626). In addition it reprints other works which illustrate Bacon's abilities in politics, law, theology, and poetry. A special feature of the edition is its extensive annotation which identifies Bacon's sources and allusions, and elucidates his vocabulary.

    Volume 1 presents twenty-five key texts, chronologically arranged, beginning with Peirce's "On a New List of Categories" of 1867, a highly regarded alternative to Kantian philosophy, and ending with the first sustained and systematic presentation of his evolutionary metaphysics in the "Monist Metaphysical Series" of 1891-1893. The book features a clear introduction and informative headnotes to help readers grasp the nature and significance of Peirce's thought system. Bringing together all the writings needed for the study of Peirce's systematic philosophy and its development, Volume 1 is ideal for classroom use. Volume 2, covering the period from 1894 until Peirce's death in 1914, will highlight the development of his system of signs and his mature pragmatism."...a first-rate edition, which supersedes all other portable Peirces.... all the Peirce most people will ever need." --Louis Menand, The New York Review of Books"The Monist essays are included in the first volume of the compact and welcome Essential Peirce; they are by Peirce's standards quite accessible and splendid in their cosmic scope and assertiveness." --London Review of Books

    The original volume remains a central point of reference, and a focus of controversy, with its impact extending into linguistic theory, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. Addressing a central question--what it is for words to mean what they do--and featuring a previously uncollected, additional essay, this work will appeal to a wide audience of philosophers, linguists, and psychologists.

    In such a scenario, it makes sense to focus on the most identifiable and urgent problems, right? Actually, it doesn't. In his classic essay "The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge," Abraham Flexner, the founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the man who helped bring Albert Einstein to the United States, describes a great paradox of scientific research. The search for answers to deep questions, motivated solely by curiosity and without concern for applications, often leads not only to the greatest scientific discoveries but also to the most revolutionary technological breakthroughs. In short, no quantum mechanics, no computer chips.This brief book includes Flexner's timeless 1939 essay alongside a new companion essay by Robbert Dijkgraaf, the Institute's current director, in which he shows that Flexner's defense of the value of "the unobstructed pursuit of useless knowledge" may be even more relevant today than it was in the early twentieth century. Dijkgraaf describes how basic research has led to major transformations in the past century and explains why it is an essential precondition of innovation and the first step in social and cultural change. He makes the case that society can achieve deeper understanding and practical progress today and tomorrow only by truly valuing and substantially funding the curiosity-driven "pursuit of useless knowledge" in both the sciences and the humanities.

    Now Blackburn offers a tour de force exploration of what he calls the most exciting and engaging issue in the whole of philosophy--the age-old war over truth.The front lines of this war are well defined. On one side are those who believe in plain, unvarnished facts, rock-solid truths that can be found through reason and objectivity--that science leads to truth, for instance. Their opponents mock this idea. They see the dark forces of language, culture, power, gender, class, ideology and desire--all subverting our perceptions of the world, and clouding our judgement with false notions of absolute truth. Beginning with an early skirmish in the war--when Socrates confronted the sophists in ancient Athens--Blackburn offers a penetrating look at the longstanding battle these two groups have waged, examining the philosophical battles fought by Plato, Protagoras, William James, David Hume, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty, and many others, with a particularly fascinating look at Nietzsche. Among the questions Blackburn considers are: is science mere opinion, can historians understand another historical period, and indeed can one culture ever truly understand another.Blackburn concludes that both sides have merit, and that neither has exclusive ownership of truth. What is important is that, whichever side we embrace, we should know where we stand and what is to be said for our opponents.

    At the same time adjacent portions of philosophy and logic are discussed. To the existence of what objects may a given scientific theory be said to be committed? And what considerations may suitably guide us in accepting or revising such ontological commitments? These are among the questions dealt with in this book, particular attention being devoted to the role of abstract entities in mathematics. There is speculation on the mechanism whereby objects of one sort or another come to be posited a process in which the notion of identity plays an important part."This volume of essays has a unity and bears throughout the imprint of Quine's powerful and original mind. It is written with the felicity in the choice of words which makes everything that Quine writes a pleasure to read, and which ranks him among the best contemporary writers on abstract subjects." (Cambridge Review)"Professor Quine's challenging and original views are here for the first time presented as a unity. The chief merit of the book is the heart-searching from which it arose and to which it will give rise. In vigour, conciseness, and clarity, it is characteristic of its author." (Oxford Magazine)

    Unique in western philosophy for his affinity with Eastern thought, Schopenhauer influenced philosophers, writers, and composers including Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Wagner, Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, and Samuel Beckett.The Work presented here appeals not only to the student of philosophy but everyone interested in psychology, literature and eastern and western religion. This paperback edition is the most comprehensive available and includes an introduction, bibliography, selected criticism, index and chronology of Schopenhauer's life and times.

    In this book, one of the world's preeminent philosophers takes issue with an idea that has found an all-too-prominent place in popular culture and philosophical thought: the idea that while factual claims can be rationally established or refuted, claims about value are wholly subjective, not capable of being rationally argued for or against. Although it is on occasion important and useful to distinguish between factual claims and value judgments, the distinction becomes, Hilary Putnam argues, positively harmful when identified with a dichotomy between the objective and the purely subjective.Putnam explores the arguments that led so much of the analytic philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology to become openly hostile to the idea that talk of value and human flourishing can be right or wrong, rational or irrational; and by which, following philosophy, social sciences such as economics have fallen victim to the bankrupt metaphysics of Logical Positivism. Tracing the problem back to Hume's conception of a matter of fact as well as to Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments, Putnam identifies a path forward in the work of Amartya Sen. Lively, concise, and wise, his book prepares the way for a renewed mutual fruition of philosophy and the social sciences.