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The crisis of reason: European thought, 1848-1914
by J. W. BurrowThis elegant and skilful book explores the history of ideas in Europe from the revolutions of 1848 to the beginning of the First World War. Broader than a straight survey, deeper and richer than a textbook, the work seeks to place the reader in the position of 'an informed eavesdropper on the intellectual conversations of the past. <P><P> After an introductory chapter which introduces the mental world of the mid-nineteenth century, Burrow explores the impact of science and social thought on European intellectual life, considering ideas in physics, through social evolution and Social Darwinism, to anxieties about modernity and personal identity. His discussion also takes in powerful and fashionable concepts in evolution, art, myth, the occult and the unconscious mind, considers the rise of the great cities of Berlin, Paris and London, and the work of literary writers, philosophers and composers. The text is populated by most of the great and many of the lesser known intellectual figures of the age, from Mill, Bakunin, Nietzsche, Bergson and Renan to Pater, Proust, Clough, Flaubert, Wagner and Wilde. A work of rare distinction and considerable erudition, the book is written in a graceful,
The foundations of modern political thought
by Quentin SkinnerA two-volume study of political thought from the late thirteenth to the end of the sixteenth century, the decisive period of transition from medieval to modern political theory. The work is intended to be both an introduction to the period for students, and a presentation and justification of a particular approach to the interpretation of historical texts. Volume One deals with the Renaissance, Volume Two with the Age of Reformation. Quentin Skinner gives an outline account of all the principal texts of the period, discussing in turn the chief political writings of Dante, Marsiglio, Bartolus, Machiavelli, Erasmus and more, Luther and Calvin, Bodin and the Calvinist revolutionaries. But he also examines a very large number of lesser writers in order to explain the general social and intellectual context in which these leading theorists worked. He thus presents the history not as a procession of 'classic texts' but are more readily intelligible. He traces by this means the gradual emergence of the vocabulary of modern political thought, and in particular the crucial concept of the State. We are given an insight into the actual processes of the formation of ideologies and into some of the linkages between political theory and practice. The work aspires, in this sense, to give the first genuinely historical account of the political thought of the period.
The principles of representative government
by Bernard ManinThe thesis of this original and provocative book is that representative government should be understood as a combination of democratic and undemocratic elements. Challenging the conventionally held views on the subject, Professor Manin reminds us that while today representative institutions and democracy appear as virtually indistinguishable, when representative government was first established in Europe and America, it was designed in opposition to democracy proper. The author identifies the essential features of democratic institutions and reviews the history of their application.
The realistic empiricism of Mach, James, and Russell
by Erik C. BanksIn the early twentieth century, Ernst Mach, William James, and Bertrand Russell founded a philosophical and scientific movement known as 'neutral monism', based on the view that minds and physical objects are constructed out of elements or events which are neither mental nor physical, but neutral between the two. This movement offers a unified scientific outlook which includes sensations in human experience and events in the world of physics under one roof. In this book Erik C. Banks discusses this important movement as a whole for the first time. He explores the ways in which the three philosophers can be connected, and applies their ideas to contemporary problems in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science - in particular the relation of sensations to brain processes, and the problem of constructing extended bodies in space and time from particular events and causal relations.
The structure of enquiry in Plato's early dialogues
by Vasilis PolitisThis book proposes and defends a radically new account of Plato's method of argument and enquiry in his early dialogues. Vasilis Politis challenges the traditional account according to which these dialogues are basically about the demand for definitions, and questions the equally traditional view that what lies behind Plato's method of argument is a peculiar theory of knowledge. He argues that these dialogues are enquiries set in motion by dilemmas and aporiai, incorporating both a sceptical and an anti-sceptical dimension, and he contends that Plato introduces the demand for definitions, and the search for essences, precisely in order to avoid a sceptical conclusion and hold out the prospect that knowledge can be achieved. His argument will be of great value to all readers interested in Plato's dialogues and in methods of philosophical argument more generally.
The things that are Caesar's: The memoirs of a Canadian public servant
by Brian HeeneyArnold Heeney had a distinguished career in the service of the government of Canada – as secretary to the cabinet, undersecretary of state for external affairs, ambassador to the North Atlantic Council, twice ambassador to the United States (1953-7 and 1959-62), and co-chairman of the International Joint Commission. His career in public administration began in 1938 when he left a growing law practice to become principal secretary to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Two years later he was appointed secretary to the cabinet, the first to hold this office, and for nine years, from 1940 to 1949, he kept the minutes and the secrets of the government of Canada. His memoirs recall his years of service; they form a lucid, modest, illuminating, and entertaining account of value to historians, political scientists, and other citizens interested in the workings of government. The first former mandarin to write his memoirs. Arnold Heeney sheds light, from intimate vantage points, on policy processes over thirty years as well as on a large cast of characters, domestic and foreign.
The Žižek Dictionary
by Rex ButlerSlavoj Žižek is the most popular and discussed philosopher in the world today. His prolific writings – across philosophy, psychoanalysis, political and social theory, film, music and religion – always engage and provoke. The power of his ideas, the breadth of his references, his capacity for playfulness and confrontation, his willingness to change his mind and his refusal fundamentally to alter his argument – all have worked to build an extraordinary international readership as well as to elicit much critical reaction. The Žižek Dictionary brings together leading Žižek commentators from across the world to present a companion and guide to Žižekian thought. Each of the 60 short essays examines a key term and, crucially, explores its development across Žižek’s work and how it fits in with other concepts and concerns. The dictionary will prove invaluable both to readers coming to Žižek for the first time and to those already embarked on the Žižekian journey.
The ‘Hidden Curriculum’ of Vietnam’s English School Textbooks (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Raf Vanderstraeten Thi Duyen PhuongThis book analyzes the basic ideas and premises underlying the English textbooks used at the higher secondary school level in Vietnam from the 1980s to the present, from a sociological perspective. The dataset, upon which this book builds, consists of a collection of 18 textbooks, which belong to five sets of locally developed English textbooks for grade 10 to grade 12 students. These series were used in all public schools from the mid-1980s to the present. During this period, schooling expanded rapidly in Vietnam, while English also gained increasing prominence within the school system.This book examines the curricular content of these textbooks and presents a long-term analysis of the ‘hidden’ curricular content in light of Vietnam’s recent history and its government’s concerns about national identity.
The ‘Kiss’ and the Medicine of Love: A Critical Edition of Francesco Patrizi’s Il Delfino (Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine)
by Tommaso GhezzaniThis is a revised critical edition of philosopher and scientist, Francesco Patrizi's manuscript, Il Delfino, overo del bacio (c.1555), with an English translation and commentary. Il Delfino, or ‘The Kiss’ survives in a single manuscript, compiled by an assistant and interspersed with autograph corrections by Patrizi himself. The only modern critical edition of the text, edited by Danilo Aguzzi Barbagli (1975), is known to contain many errors that prevent a correct understanding of the work. This book therefore fills this historiographical gap and at the same time provides a reliable text for further translations of Patrizi's work into other languages.
The ‘Natural Light’ of Consciousness: Living Consciousness as a Means and Subject of Psychological Research
by Eugene SubbotskyThe book is about living consciousness: private subjective experience, which conforms to the laws of magic. The concept of living consciousness is employed to clarify disputable concepts such as natural psychological functions and artificial intelligence, to explore how living consciousness is reflected in visual art and fiction writings, and to show how living consciousness could be influenced in education to promote creative thinking, memory and differentiating perception.
The ‘Postmodern Turn’ in the Social Sciences
by Simon SusenSimon Susen examines the impact of the 'postmodern turn' on the contemporary social sciences. On the basis of an innovative five-dimensional approach, this study provides a systematic, comprehensive, and critical account of the legacy of the 'postmodern turn', notably in terms of its continuing relevance in the twenty-first century.
The ‘Postmodern Turn’ in the Social Sciences
by Simon SusenSimon Susen examines the impact of the 'postmodern turn' on the contemporary social sciences. On the basis of an innovative five-dimensional approach, this study provides a systematic, comprehensive, and critical account of the legacy of the 'postmodern turn', notably in terms of its continuing relevance in the twenty-first century.
Theaetetus
by Plato Bernard Williams Myles Burnyeat M. J. LevettM. J. Levett's elegant translation of Plato's Theaetetus, first published in 1928, is here revised by Myles Burnyeat to reflect contemporary standards of accuracy while retaining the style, imagery, and idiomatic speech for which the Levett translation is unparalleled. Bernard William's concise introduction, aimed at undergraduate students, illuminates the powerful argument of this complex dialogue, and illustrates its connections to contemporary metaphysical and epistemological concerns.
Theaetetus
by Plato Joe SachsThis is an English translation of Plato's dialogue concerning the nature of knowledge. In this dialogue, Socrates and Theaetetus discuss three definitions of knowledge: knowledge as nothing but perception, as true judgment and as true judgment with an account. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Plato’s immediate audience.
Theaetetus
by PlatoSet immediately prior to the trial and execution of Socrates in 399 BC, Theaetetus shows the great philosopher considering the nature of knowledge itself, in a debate with the geometrician Theodorus and his young follower Theaetetus. Their dialogue covers many questions, such as: is knowledge purely subjective, composed of the ever-changing flow of impressions we receive from the outside world? Is it better thought of as 'true belief'? Or is it, as many modern philosophers argue, 'justified true belief', in which the belief is supported by argument or evidence? With skill and eloquence, Socrates guides the debate, drawing out the implications of these theories and subjecting them to merciless and mesmerising criticism. One of the founding works of epistemology, this profound discussion of the problem of knowledge continues to intrigue and inspire.
Theaters of Justice: Judging, Staging, and Working Through in Arendt, Brecht, and Delbo
by Yasco HorsmanWhat role do legal trials have in collective processes of coming to terms with a history of mass violence? How does the theatrical structure of a criminal trial facilitate and limit national processes of healing and learning from the past? This study begins with the widely publicized, historic trials of three Nazi war criminals, Eichmann, Barbie, and Priebke, whose explicit goal was not only to punish, but also to establish an officially sanctioned version of the past. The Truth and Reconciliation commissions in South America and South Africa added a therapeutic goal, acting on the belief that a trial can help bring about a moment of closure. Horsman challenges this belief by reading works that reflect on the relations among pedagogy, therapy, and legal trials. Philosopher Hannah Arendt, poet Charlotte Delbo, and dramaturg Bertolt Brecht all produced responses to historic trials that reopened the cases those trials sought to close, bringing to center stage aspects that had escaped the confines of their legal frameworks.
Theatre and Evolution from Ibsen to Beckett
by Kirsten Shepherd-BarrReveals the deep, transformative entanglement among science, art, and culture in modern times
Theatre and the Virtual: Genesis, Touch, Gesture (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Zornitsa DimitrovaTheatre and the Virtual lays out a set of conceptual instruments for the articulation and engendering of the forces of theatrical potentiality. Creating a passage toward a reconstitution of the given, a theatre of the virtual opens bodies in motion to a region of an ongoing genesis of forces. The outcome: regimes of constraint are abandoned through a radical practice of ecological attunement. Violence is eschewed through an onto-ecology of touch. Closed systems are repotentialised to become co-constitutive of their environments. A logic of spectrality settles in—not so much entities as atmospheres, not so much a being as a style of being, not so much a body as multitudinous milieus of response. This is the task of a theatre of the virtual—to safeguard the possibility of the extra-epistemological and uphold one’s right to offer accounts of oneself from outside of being, all the while creating a fractured record of the wondrous mutations of a moving, gesturing body. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre, philosophy, new materialisms, environmental humanities, gesture, and the ontology of response.
Theatres of Immanence
by Laura CullTheatres of Immanence: Deleuze and the Ethics of Performance, now available in paperback, is the first monograph to provide an in-depth study of the implications of Gilles Deleuze's philosophy for theatre and performance. Engaging with a wide range of interdisciplinary practitioners including Goat Island, Butoh, Artaud, John Cage, the Living Theatre, Robert Wilson and Allan Kaprow, as well as with the philosophies of Deleuze and Guattari, Henri Bergson and Fran#65533;ois Laruelle, the book conceives performance as a way of thinking 'immanence': the open and endlessly creative whole of which all things are a part. Theatres of Immanence builds upon Deleuze's emphasis on immanence, affect, change and movement to provide new approaches to five key topics in theatre and performance: 1) authorship and collaboration, 2) voice and language, 3) animals in performance, 4) audience participation and 5) time or duration. The book provides an accessible introduction to Deleuze's ideas and draws attention to the ethical dimensions of performance, asking: 'what good is theatre, and particularly immanent theatre, anyway?
Theatrical Improvisation, Consciousness, and Cognition
by Clayton D. DrinkoImprovisation teachers have long known that the human mind could be trained to be effortlessly spontaneous and intuitive. Drinko explores what these improvisation teachers knew about improvisation's effects on consciousness and cognition and compares these theories to current findings in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy.
Their Members' Voice
by Meike RodekampThe role of civil society organisations in Brussels is debated. Some view them as representatives of their members and thus as legitimising agents for policy-making in the European Union. Others see them as being elitist and out of touch with their membership bases, therefore ill-suited to promote democracy at the EU level. Taking civil society organisations in the EU's external relations as an example, Meike Rodekamp submits these controversial views to a reality check. Interviews with representatives of civil society organisations in Brussels and their member organisations in the EU show that the Brussels offices have not lost contact with their members. However, member organisations differ substantially in their participation in internal decision-making processes, which raises doubts about the legitimacy gains through civil society participation in EU policy-making.
Their Morals And Ours: The Class Foundations Of Moral Practice
by John Dewey Leon Trotsky Victor Serge George NovackParticipating in the revolutionary workers movement "with open eyes and an intense will--only this can give the highest moral satisfaction to a thinking being," Trotsky writes. He explains how morality is rooted in the interests of contending social classes. With a reply by the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey and a Marxist response to Dewey by George Novack. Glossary, index.
Theism and Cosmology: Being the First Series of a Course of Gifford Lectures on the General Subject of Metaphysics and Theism given in the University of Glasgow in 1939 (Routledge Library Editions: Philosophy of Religion)
by John LairdTheism is one of the major types of metaphysics and cosmology is the general theory of the whole wide world. Must the world have an over-worldly source, or any source? Would "space" crumble unless God perpetually sustained it by his brooding omnipresence? Is all power, properly understood, divine power? These large questions, never out of date, are examined by Professor Laird in the light of contemporary philosophy. This seminal work, originally published in 1940 is a lucid and profound discussion in theological philosophy.
Theism and Explanation (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion)
by Gregory W. DawesIn this timely study, Dawes defends the methodological naturalism of the sciences. Though religions offer what appear to be explanations of various facts about the world, the scientist, as scientist, will not take such proposed explanations seriously. Even if no natural explanation were available, she will assume that one exists. Is this merely a sign of atheistic prejudice, as some critics suggest? Or are there good reasons to exclude from science explanations that invoke a supernatural agent? On the one hand, Dawes concedes the bare possibility that talk of divine action could constitute a potential explanation of some state of affairs, while noting that the conditions under which this would be true are unlikely ever to be fulfilled. On the other hand, he argues that a proposed explanation of this kind would rate poorly, when measured against our usual standards of explanatory virtue.