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On Oligarchy
by Toivu Koivukoski David TabachnickEconomic power is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few, even as democratic movements worldwide allow for political power to be dispersed among the many. With their access to influence, the wealthy can shape and constrain the political power of the rest of the world. As the economic dominance of an elite minority coincides with the forces of globalization, is oligarchy becoming the dominant political regime?This collection explores the renewed relevance of oligarchy to contemporary global politics. By drawing out lessons from classic texts, contributors illustrate how the character of oligarchical regimes informs contemporary political life. Topics include the relationship between the American government and corporations, the tension between republican and oligarchical regimes, and the potential conflicts that have opened up between economic management and political life. On Oligarchy deftly illuminates the significance of this regime in the context of pressing global economic and political issues.
On Order: St. Augustine's Cassiciacum Dialogues, Volume 3
by Saint AugustineA fresh, new translation of Augustine’s third work as a Christian convert The first four works written by St. Augustine of Hippo after his conversion to Christianity are dialogues that have influenced prominent thinkers from Boethius to Bernard Lonergan. Usually called the “Cassiciacum dialogues,” these four works are of a high literary and intellectual quality, combining Ciceronian and neo-Platonic philosophy, Roman comedy and Vergilian poetry, and early Christian theology. They are also, arguably, Augustine’s most charming works, exhibiting his whimsical levity and ironic wryness.On Order is the third work in this tetralogy, and it is Augustine’s only work explicitly devoted to theodicy, the reconciliation of Almighty God’s goodness with evil’s existence. In this dialogue, Augustine argues that a certain kind of self-knowledge is the key to unlocking the answers to theodicy’s vexing questions, and he devotes the latter half of the dialogue to an excursus on the liberal arts as disciplines that will help strengthen the mind to know itself and God.
On Painting: Courses, March-June 1981 (Univocal)
by Gilles DeleuzeAvailable for the first time in English: the complete and annotated transcripts of Deleuze&’s 1981 seminars on painting From 1970 until 1987, Gilles Deleuze held a weekly seminar at the Experimental University of Vincennes and, starting in 1980, at Saint-Denis. In the spring of 1981, he began a series of eight seminars on painting and its intersections with philosophy. The recorded sessions, newly transcribed and translated into English, are now available in their entirety for the first time. Extensively annotated by philosopher David Lapoujade, On Painting illuminates Deleuze&’s thinking on artistic creation, significantly extending the lines of thought in his book Francis Bacon. Through paintings and writing by Rembrandt, Delacroix, Turner, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Klee, Pollock, and Bacon, Deleuze explores the creative process, from chaos to the pictorial fact. The introduction and use of color feature prominently as Deleuze elaborates on artistic and philosophical concepts such as the diagram, modulation, code, and the digital and the analogical. Through this scrutiny, he raises a series of profound and stimulating questions for his students: How does a painter ward off grayness and attain color? What is a line without contour? Why paint at all? Written and thought in a rhizomatic manner that is thoroughly Deleuzian—strange, powerful, and novel—On Painting traverses both the conception of art history and the possibility of color as a philosophical concept. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.
On Paradox: The Claims of Theory
by Elizabeth S. AnkerIn On Paradox literary and legal scholar Elizabeth S. Anker contends that faith in the logic of paradox has been the cornerstone of left intellectualism since the second half of the twentieth century. She attributes the ubiquity of paradox in the humanities to its appeal as an incisive tool for exposing and dismantling hierarchies. Tracing the ascent of paradox in theories of modernity, in rights discourse, in the history of literary criticism and the linguistic turn, and in the transformation of the liberal arts in higher education, Anker suggests that paradox not only generates the very exclusions it critiques but also creates a disempowering haze of indecision. She shows that reasoning through paradox has become deeply problematic: it engrains a startling homogeneity of thought while undercutting the commitment to social justice that remains a guiding imperative of theory. Rather than calling for a wholesale abandonment of such reasoning, Anker argues for an expanded, diversified theory toolkit that can help theorists escape the seductions and traps of paradox.
On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation (Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature)
by David WoodThis book examines the later work of Paul Ricoeur, particularly his major work, Time and Narrative . The essays, including three pieces by Ricoeur himself, consider this important study, extending and developing the debate it has inspired. Time and Narrative is the finest example of contemporary philosophical hermeneutics and is one of the most significant works of philosophy published in the late twentieth century. Paul Ricoeur's study of the intertwining of time and narrative proposes and examines the possibility that narrative could remedy a fatal deficiency in any purely phenomenological approach. He analysed both literary and historical writing, from Proust to Braudel, as well as key figures in the history of philosophy: Aristotle, Augustine, Kant, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger. His own recognition of his limited success in expunging aporia opens onto the positive discovery of the importance of narrative identity, on which Ricoeur writes here. Other contributors take up a range of different topics: Tracing Ricoeur's own philosophical trajectory; reflexively applying the narrative approach to philosophy, or to his own text; reconstructing his dialectic of sedimentati and tradition. An essential companion to Time and Narrative , this collection also provides an excellent introduction to Ricoeur's later work and to contemporary works in philosophical hermeneutics.
On Pedantry: A Cultural History of the Know-it-All
by Arnoud S. VisserA lively and entertaining cultural history of a supremely annoying intellectual viceIntellectuals have long provoked scorn and irritation, even downright aggression. Many learned individuals have cast such hostility as a badge of honor, a sign of envy, or a form of resistance to inconvenient truths. On Pedantry offers an altogether different perspective, revealing how the excessive use of learning has been a vice in Western culture since the days of Socrates.Taking readers from the academies of ancient Greece to today&’s culture wars, Arnoud Visser explains why pretentious and punctilious learning has always annoyed us, painting vibrant portraits of some of the most intensely irritating intellectuals ever known, from devious sophists and bossy savantes to hypercritical theologians, dry-as-dust antiquarians, and know-it-all professors. He shows how criticisms of pedantry have typically been more about conduct than ideas, and he demonstrates how pedantry served as a weapon in the perennial struggle over ideas, social status, political authority, and belief. Shifting attention away from the self-proclaimed virtues of the learned to their less-than-flattering vice, Visser makes a bold and provocative contribution to the history of Western thought.Drawing on a wealth of sources ranging from satire and comedy to essays, sermons, and film, On Pedantry sheds critical light on why anti-intellectual views have gained renewed prominence today and serves as essential reading in an age of rising populism across the globe.
On Personality (Thinking in Action)
by Peter GoldieWarm, sensitive, creative, outgoing, cheeky, creepy. Scan any personal ads page and it's clear that to get a life you need a personality first. It is also a notion with a long and often bizarre history: in early Greece and medieval Europe, it was thought to depend on the balance of bile in the body. On Personality is a thoughtful and stimulating look under the skin of this widely-used but little understood phenomenon. Peter Goldie points out that we rely on personality to do a lot of work: describe, judge, understand, explain and predict others as well as ourselves. Is it really up to this task? If personality is about 'character', is it a relic of a bygone Victorian age? If personality is so reliable, how can a virtue in one person be a vice in another?Drawing on a great range of philosophers, novelists and films, from Aristotle, Hume, Kant and Nietzsche to Joseph Conrad, Middlemarch, War and Peace and Bridget Jones' Diary, Peter Goldie also discusses some famous psychology experiments. If personality is a reliable guide to predicting what people will do, he reflects on why people often surprise us and asks whether personality is simply down to chance and circumstance. On Personality is essential reading for anyone interested in this fascinating but slippery concept. It will also make you think twice before writing your CV.
On Philosophy As A Spiritual Exercise
by Philip GoodchildWhat if self-questioning could provoke an extreme attentiveness to a rich inner life? In pursuit of this question, a mixed group of highly fallible thinkers gather together in the north of England. Will they be able to respond to the actual events of their lives, and reinvent philosophy as a collective spiritual exercise?
On Philosophy and Philosophers: Unpublished Papers, 1960–2000
by Richard Rorty Chris VoparilOn Philosophy and Philosophers is a volume of unpublished philosophical papers by Richard Rorty, a central figure in late-twentieth century intellectual debates and a primary force behind the resurgence of American pragmatism. The first collection of new work to appear since his death in 2007, these previously unseen papers advance novel views on metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, philosophical semantics and the social role of philosophy, critically engaging canonical and contemporary figures from Plato and Kant to Kripke and Brandom. This book's diverse offerings, which include technical essays written for specialists and popular lectures, refine our understanding of Rorty's perspective and demonstrate the ongoing relevance of the iconoclastic American philosopher's ground-breaking thought. An introduction by the editors highlights the papers' original insights and contributions to contemporary debates.
On Philosophy: Notes From a Crisis
by John MccumberDeepening divisions separate today's philosophers, first, from the culture at large; then, from each other; and finally, from philosophy itself. Though these divisions tend to coalesce publicly as debates over the Enlightenment, their roots lie much deeper. Overcoming them thus requires a confrontation with the whole of Western philosophy. Only when we uncover the strange heritage of Aristotle's metaphysics, as reworked, for example, by Descartes and Kant, can we understand contemporary philosophy's inability to dialogue with women, people of color, LGBTs, and other minority groups. Only when we have understood that inability can we see how the thought of Hegel and Heidegger contains the seeds of a remedy. And only when armed with such a remedy can philosophy rise to the challenges posed by thinkers such as David Foster Wallace and Abraham Lincoln. The book's interpretations of these figures and others past and present are as scrupulous as its conclusions will be controversial. The result contributes to the most important question confronting us today: does reason itself have a future?
On Photography: A Philosophical Inquiry
by Diarmuid CostelloWhat is photography? Is it a source of knowledge or an art? Many have said the former because it records the world automatically, others the latter because it expresses human subjectivity. Can photography be both or must we choose? In On Photography: A Philosophical Inquiry, Diarmuid Costello examines these fascinating questions and more, drawing on images by Alfred Stieglitz, Berenice Abbott, Paul Strand, Lee Friedlander, James Welling, and Wolfgang Tillmans, among others, and the writings of Elizabeth Eastlake, Peter Henry Emerson, Edward Weston, Siegfried Kracauer, André Bazin, and Stanley Cavell. This sets the scene for the contemporary stand-off between "sceptical" and "non-sceptical" Orthodoxy in the work of Roger Scruton and Kendall Walton, and a New Theory of Photography taking its cue from László Moholy-Nagy and Patrick Maynard. Written in a clear and engaging style, On Photography is essential reading for anyone interested in the philosophy of photography, aesthetics, art, and visual studies.
On Physics and Philosophy
by Bernard d'EspagnatAmong the great ironies of quantum mechanics is not only that its conceptual foundations seem strange even to the physicists who use it, but that philosophers have largely ignored it. Here, Bernard d'Espagnat argues that quantum physics--by casting doubts on once hallowed concepts such as space, material objects, and causality-demands serious reconsideration of most of traditional philosophy. On Physics and Philosophy is an accessible, mathematics-free reflection on the philosophical meaning of the quantum revolution, by one of the world's leading authorities on the subject. D'Espagnat presents an objective account of the main guiding principles of contemporary physics-in particular, quantum mechanics-followed by a look at just what consequences these should imply for philosophical thinking. The author begins by describing recent discoveries in quantum physics such as nonseparability, and explicating the significance of contemporary developments such as decoherence. Then he proceeds to set various philosophical theories of knowledge--such as materialism, realism, Kantism, and neo-Kantism--against the conceptual problems quantum theory raises. His overall conclusion is that while the physical implications of quantum theory suggest that scientific knowledge will never truly describe mind-independent reality, the notion of such an ultimate reality--one we can never access directly or rationally and which he calls "veiled reality"--remains conceptually necessary nonetheless.
On Poetry and Style
by Aristotle G. M. A. Grube Donald J. ZeylContains the Poetics and the first twelve chapters of the Rhetoric , Book III.
On Political Obligation
by Judith N. ShklarA compelling set of lectures on political obligation that contributes to ongoing debates in political theory and intellectual history This stimulating collection of lectures by the late Judith Shklar on political obligation is paired with a scholarly introduction that offers an overview of her life, illuminates the connections among her teaching, research, and publications, and explains why her lectures still resonate with us and contribute to current debates in political theory and intellectual history.
On Political Obligation (Routledge Library Editions: Political Thought and Political Philosophy #26)
by Paul HarrisFirst published in 1990. The individual’s obligation to obey the law, the state and the government is a fundamental part of contemporary political theory. The contributors to this volume, drawn from a variety of disciplines including philosophy, political science and law, take a fresh look at the dilemmas of political obligation. They discuss the extent to which we should allow the need for conformity to override individual liberties, and ask whether individualism is indeed feasible without a highly developed sense of the ‘public interest’ or the ‘common good‘. The contrast between individualism and communitarianism is examined throughout the book. The contributors also look at the various means through which the state can coerce or persuade the individual to be obedient. The emphasis throughout this collection is on the substantive problems themselves, rather than on the way these issues have been addressed in the history of political thought. The book offers a number of different perspectives on political obligation, and will be valuable to students of moral, political, social and legal philosophy.
On Politics: From Herodotus to the Present (Liveright Classics Ser. #0)
by Alan RyanThree decades in the making, one of the most ambitious and comprehensive histories of political philosophy in nearly a century. Both a history and an examination of human thought and behavior spanning three thousand years, On Politics thrillingly traces the origins of political philosophy from the ancient Greeks to Machiavelli in Book I and from Hobbes to the present age in Book II. Whether examining Lord Acton's dictum that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" or explicating John Stuart Mill's contention that it is "better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied," Alan Ryan evokes the lives and minds of our greatest thinkers in a way that makes reading about them a transcendent experience. Whether writing about Plato or Augustine, de Toqueville or Thomas Jefferson, Ryan brings a wisdom to his text that illuminates John Dewey's belief that the role of philosophy is less to see truth than to enhance experience. With this unparalleled tour de force, Ryan emerges in his own right as one of the most influential political philosophers of our time.
On Popular Music and Its Unruly Entanglements: Blurring The Lines (Pop Music, Culture and Identity)
by Nick Braae Kai Arne HansenOn Popular Music and Its Unruly Entanglements comprises eleven essays that explore the myriad ways in which popular music is entwined within social, cultural, musical, historical, and media networks. The authors discuss genres as diverse as mainstream pop, hip hop, classic rock, instrumental synthwave, video game music, amateur ukelele groups, and audiovisual remixes, while also considering the music’s relationship to technological developments, various media and material(itie)s, and personal and social identity. The collection presents a range of different methodologies and theoretical positions, which results in an eclecticism that aptly demonstrates the breadth of contemporary popular music research. The chapters are divided into three major sections that address: wider theoretical and analytical issues (“Broad Strokes”), familiar repertoire or concepts from a new perspective (“Second Takes”), and the meanings to arise from music’s connections with other media forms (“Audiovisual Entanglements”).
On Populist Reason (Phronesis Ser.)
by Ernesto LaclauIn this highly original work Ernesto Laclau continues the philosophical and political exploration initiated in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Here he focuses on the construction of popular identities and how "the people" emerge as a collective actor. Skillfully combining theoretical analysis with a myriad of empirical references from numerous historical and geographical contexts he offers a critical reading of the existing literature on populism, demonstrating its dependency on the theorists of "mass psychology" such as Taine and Freud. He demonstrates the relation of populism to democracy and to the logic of representation, and differentiates his approach from the work of i ek, Hardt and Negri, and Ranciere. This book is essential reading for all those interested in the question of political identities in present-day societies.
On Posthuman War: Computation and Military Violence
by Mike HillTracing war&’s expansion beyond the battlefield to the concept of the human being itself As military and other forms of political violence become the planetary norm, On Posthuman War traces the expansion of war beyond traditional theaters of battle. Drawing on counterinsurgency field manuals, tactical manifestos, data-driven military theory, and asymmetrical-war archives, Mike Hill delineates new &“Areas of Operation&” within a concept of the human being as not only a social and biological entity but also a technical one.Delving into three human-focused disciplines newly turned against humanity, OnPosthuman War reveals how demography, anthropology, and neuroscience have intertwined since 9/11 amid the &“Revolution in Military Affairs.&” Beginning with the author&’s personal experience training with U.S. Marine recruits at Parris Island, Hill gleans insights from realist philosophy, the new materialism, and computational theory to show how the human being, per se, has been reconstituted from neutral citizen to unwitting combatant. As evident in the call for &“bullets, beans, and data,&” whatever can be parted out, counted, and reassembled can become war materiel. Hill shows how visible and invisible wars within identity, community, and cognition shift public-sphere activities, like racial identification, group organization, and even thought itself, in the direction of war. This shift has weaponized social activities against the very notion of society. On Posthuman War delivers insights on the latest war technologies, strategies, and tactics while engaging in questions poised to overturn the foundations of modern political thought.
On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures (Unica Ser.)
by Noam ChomskyOne of Noam Chomsky's most accessible books, On Power and Ideology is a product of his 1986 visit to Managua, Nicaragua, for a lecture series at Unversidad Centroamericana. Delivered at the height of U.S. involvement in the Nicaraguan civil war, this succinct series of lectures lays out the parameters of Noam Chomsky's foreign policy analysis.The book consists of five lectures on U.S. international and security policy. The first two lectures examine the persistent and largely homogenous features of U.S. foreign policy, and overall framework of order. The third discusses Central America and its foreign policy pattern. The fourth looks at U.S. national security and the arms race. And the fifth examines U.S. domestic policy.These five talks, conveyed directly to the people bearing the brunt of devastating U.S. foreign policy, make historic and exciting reading.
On Power in Architecture: From a Materialistic, Phenomenological, and Post-Structuralist Perspective (Routledge Research in Architecture)
by Mateja KurirArchitecture has always been a decisive manifestation of power. This volume represents an attempt to question and reflect on the relationship between power and architecture from three philosophical perspectives: materialistic, phenomenological and post-structuralist.This collection opens an interdisciplinary investigation that aims to reflect on architecture and its interconnectedness with power within philosophy and cultural theory at large while presenting these concepts using practical examples from the built environment. Internationally recognised authors – philosophers, architectural theorists and historians – Andrew Benjamin, Andrew Ballantyne, Mladen Dolar, Hilde Heynen, Nadir Lahiji, Jeff Malpas, Dean Komel, Elke Krasny, Robert Pfaller, Gerard Reinmuth, Luka Skansi, Douglas Spencer, Teresa Stoppani and Sven-Olov Wallenstein present their reflections in original unpublished essays and interviews. In the presented works, architecture is combined and transgressed by philosophy in a new discussion that focuses only on power. The contributions in this collection open a variety of architectural questions, one of the central among them being the impact of neoliberal capitalism on architecture. Architecture, with its implications on the complex contemporary political and social reality, is severely changing our space and, more globally, our environment. A reflection on the multilayered relation between architecture and power has never been as topical as it is today.This book will, therefore, be of interest to students, researchers and academics or professionals within the fields of architecture, philosophy, sociology, political sciences and cultural sciences.
On Practice and Contradiction
by Mao Tse-TungIn this dazzling new series, philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek interrogates key writings on revolution. These early philosophical writings underpinned the Chinese revolutions and their clarion calls to insurrection remain some of the most stirring of all time. Drawing on a dizzying array of references from contemporary culture and politics, Zizek's firecracker commentary reaches unsettling conclusions about the place of Mao's thought in the revolutionary canon. "Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer, which we use to crush the enemy." -- Mao Tse-Tung
On Preserving
by Bryson Brown Peter Schotch Raymond JenningsParaconsistent logic is a theory of reasoning in philosophy that studies inconsistent data. The discipline has several different schools of thought, including preservationism, which responds to the problems that arise when human beings continue to reason when faced with inconsistent data. On Preserving is the first complete account of the Preservationist School, which developed in Canada out of the early work of Raymond Jennings, Peter Schotch, and their students. Assembling the previously scattered works of the Preservationist School, this collection contains all of the most significant works on the basic theory of the preservationist approach to paraconsistent logic. With essays both written and rewritten specifically for this volume, the contributors cover topics that include the motivation for the preservationist approach, as well as more technical results of their research. Concise and unified, On Preserving is the ideal introduction to a distinct philosophical field.
On Privacy (Thinking in Action)
by Annabelle LeverThis book explores the Janus-faced features of privacy, and looks at their implications for the control of personal information, for sexual and reproductive freedom, and for democratic politics. It asks what, if anything, is wrong with asking women to get licenses in order to have children, given that pregnancy and childbirth can seriously damage your health. It considers whether employers should be able to monitor the friendships and financial affairs of employees, and whether we are entitled to know whenever someone rich, famous or powerful has cancer, or an adulterous affair. It considers whether we are entitled to privacy in public and, if so, what this might mean for the use of CCTV cameras, the treatment of the homeless and the provision of public facilities such as parks, libraries and lavatories. Above all, the book seeks to understand whether and, if so, why privacy is valuable in a democratic society, and what implications privacy has for the ways we see and treat each other. The ideas about privacy we have inherited from the past are marked by beliefs about what is desirable, realistic and possible which predate democratic government and, in some cases, predate constitutional government as well. Hence, this book argues, although privacy is an important democratic value, we can only realise that value if we use democratic ideas about the freedom, equality, security and rights of individuals to guide our understanding of privacy.
On Public Imagination: A Political and Ethical Imperative
by Michael Curtin Richard Falk Victor FaesselIn this wide-ranging and multidisciplinary volume, leading scholars, activists, journalists, and public figures deliberate about the creative and critical potential of public imagination in an era paradoxically marked by intensifying globalization and resurgent nationalism. Divided into five sections, these chapters explore the social, political, and cultural role of imagination and civic engagement, offering cogent, ingenious reflections that stand in stark contrast to the often grim rhetoric of our era. Short and succinct, the chapters engage with an interconnected ensemble of themes and issues while also providing insights into the specific geographical and social dynamics of each author’s national or regional context. • Part 1 introduces the reader to theoretical reflections on imagination and the public sphere; • Part 2 illustrates dynamics of public imagination in a diverse set of cultural contexts; • Part 3 reflects in various ways on the urgent need for a radically transformed public and civic imagination in the face of worldwide ecological crisis; • Part 4 suggests new societal possibilities that are related to spiritual as well as politically revolutionary sources of inspiration; • Part 5 explores characteristics of present and potentially emerging global society and the existing transnational framework that could provide resources for a more humane global order. Erudite and thought-provoking, On Public Imagination makes a vital contribution to political thought, and is accessible to activists, students, and scholars alike.