Required reading at more than 100 colleges and universities throughout North America.

Negative Dialects is a phrase that flouts tradition. As early as Plato, dialectics meant to achieve something positive by means of negation; the thought figure of a 'negation of negation' later became the succinct term. This book seeks to free dialectics from such affirmative traits without reducing its determinacy.

[This book] develops an account of rationality and justice that is tradition specific.-http://undpress.nd.edu.

Modernity's Consciousness of Time and Its Need for Self- Reassurance In his famous introduction to the collection of his studies on the sociology of ...

Drawing freely and expertly from Continental and analytic traditions, Richard Bernstein examines a number of debates and controversies exemplified in the works of Gadamer, Habermas, Rorty, and Arendt. He argues that a "new conversation" is emerging about human rationality—a new understanding that emphasizes its practical character and has important ramifications both for thought and action.

First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Consciousness emerges as the key topic in this second edition of Owen Flanagan's popular introduction to cognitive science and the philosophy of psychology....

The contributors represent the complete spectrum of positions between a relativism that challenges the very concept of a single world and the idea that there are ascertainable, objective universals.

The Perennial Philosophy is defined by its author as "The metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds." With great wit and stunning intellect, Aldous Huxley examines the spiritual beliefs of various religious traditions and explains them in terms that are personally meaningful.

Post-modernism offers a revolutionary approach to the study of society: in questioning the validity of modern science and the notion of objective knowledge, this movement discards history, rejects humanism, and resists any truth claims. In this comprehensive assessment of post-modernism, Pauline Rosenau traces its origins in the humanities and describes how its key concepts are today being applied to, and are restructuring, the social sciences. Serving as neither an opponent nor an apologist for the movement, she cuts through post-modernism's often (...) incomprehensible jargon in order to offer all readers a lucid exposition of its propositions. Rosenau shows how the post-modern challenge to reason and rational organization radiates across academic fields. For example, in psychology it questions the conscious, logical, coherent subject; in public administration it encourages a retreat from central planning and from reliance on specialists; in political science it calls into question the authority of hierarchical, bureaucratic decision-making structures that function in carefully defined spheres; in anthropology it inspires the protection of local, primitive cultures from First World attempts to reorganize them. In all of the social sciences, she argues, post-modernism repudiates representative democracy and plays havoc with the very meaning of "left-wing" and "right-wing." Rosenau also highlights how post-modernism has inspired a new generation of social movements, ranging from New Age sensitivities to Third World fundamentalism. In weighing its strengths and weaknesses, the author examines two major tendencies within post-modernism, the largely European, skeptical form and the predominantly Anglo-North-American form, which suggests alternative political, social, and cultural projects. She draws examples from anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, law, planning, political science, psychology, sociology, urban studies, and women's studies, and provides a glossary of post-modern terms to assist the uninitiated reader with special meanings not found in standard dictionaries. (shrink)

An introduction to and critique of the latest trends in critical theory.

Rationality contains a selection of the best contemporary writing on one of the central issues in the philosophy of social science. The contributors address themselves to questions which have increasingly become the subject of a many-sided debate between philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists: How are we to understand the beliefs and actions of other men in other cultures? Can we translate the meanings and the reason of one culture into the language of another. This volume is essential reading for courses on (...) the methodology and philosophy of social science and is so arranged that the student is introduced step by step to the cut and thrust of scholarly debate. (shrink)

Originally published in 1955. The Madhyamika philosophy is, in the author's view, the philosophy which created a revolution in Buddhism and through that in the whole range of Indian philosophy. This volume is a study of the Madhyamika philosophy in all its important aspects and is divided into three parts: Historical: this traces the origin and development of the Madhyamika philosophy. The second part concentrates on a full and critical exposition of the Madhyamika philosophy, the structure of its dialectic, its (...) conception of the Absolute and its ethics and religion. The last part of the book compares the Madhyamika with some of the well-known dialectical systems of the West (Kant, Hegel and Bradley) and undertakes a short study of the different absolutisms (Madhyamika, Vijnanavada and the Vedanta). (shrink)

This volume provides a lucid and distinct introduction to multiculturalism and the philosophy of social science.

This book presents a critical reaction against two currently influential tendencies of thought. On the one hand, it rejects the facile relativism that pervades contemporary social and academic life. On the other hand, it opposes the rationalism inherent in new-contractarian theory — both in the idealized communicative-contract version promoted in continental European political philosophy by Jürgen Habermas, and in the idealized social-contract version of the theory promoted in the Anglo-American context by John Rawls. Against such tendencies, this pluralist approach takes (...) a more realistic and pragmatic line, eschewing the convenient recourse of idealization in cognitive and practical matters. Instead of a utopianism that looks to a uniquely perfect order that would prevail under ideal conditions, it advocates incremental improvements within the framework or arrangements that none of us will deem perfect, but that all of us ‘can live with’. Such an approach replaces the yearning for an unattainable consensus with the institution of pragmatic arrangements in which the community will acquiesce — not through agreeing on their optimality, but through a shared recognition among the dissonant parties that the available options are even worse. (shrink)

Wilber's groundbreaking synthesis of religion, philosophy, physics, and psychology started a revolution in transpersonal psychology.

Never before has there been a greater need for deeper listening and more open communication to cope with the complex problems facing our organizations, businesses and societies. Renowned scientist David Bohm believed there was a better way for humanity to discover meaning and to achieve harmony. He identified creative dialogue, a sharing of assumptions and understanding, as a means by which the individual, and society as a whole, can learn more about themselves and others, and achieve a renewed sense of (...) purpose. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a vigorous revival of interest in relativism - both in support and in opposition. This collection of 21 essays, 16 of which appear in print here for the first time, advances the discussion found in an earlier volume, Relativism: Cognitive and Moral. These present selections focus on philosophical and methodological issues of relativism by exhibiting its varieties and by rehearsing its virtues and vices. The contributions concern relativism in a wide range of practices in the human (...) studies. (shrink)

Knowledge and its desacralization --What is tradition? -- The rediscovery of the sacred : the revival of tradition -- Scientia sacra -- Man, pontifical and Promethean -- The cosmos as theophany -- Eternity and the temporal order -- Traditional art as fountain of knowledge and grace -- Principal knowledge and the multiplicity of sacred forms -- Knowledge of the sacred as deliverance.

Relativism is one of the most tenacious theories about truth, with a pedigree as old as philosophy itself. Nearly as ancient is the chief criticism of relativism, namely the charge that the theory is self-refuting. This paper develops a logic of relativism that (1) illuminates the classic self-refutation charge and shows how to escape it; (2) makes rigorous the ideas of truth as relative and truth as absolute, and shows the relations between them; (3) develops an intensional logic for relativism; (...) (4) provides a framework in which relativists can consistently promote ethical, mathematical, scientific, religious, and political truths (among others) as being relative; (5) argues that the notion of incommensurability is far less troubling than is commonly thought; and (6) argues that the concept of a perspective as needed by the theory is not prey to Davidson's well-known critique of conceptual schemes. The paper will not defend relativism as the correct theory of truth, nor will it provide a fully satisfying theory about the nature of a perspective. The logic of relativism is primarily meant to provide a formal framework in which relativists can consistently develop their theories. This alone is a considerable step forward, since the debate about relativism often founders upon the rock of self-refutation. It is argued that while 'everything is relative' is inconsistent, 'everything true is relatively true' is not. The latter is all a relativist really needs. (shrink)

Schuon asserts that to transcend religious differences, we must explore the esoteric nature of the spiritual path back to the Divine Oneness at the heart of all ...

This study in cross-cultural hermeneutics examines the role that modern, Western philosophy has played in the interpretation of Nagarjuna's Madhyamikakarika, a second-century Indian-Buddhist text. Tuck locates a structure of distinct phases or "styles" in modern, philosophical history. These phases, Tuck shows, exhibit discontinuous interpretive biases, as well as continuity of hermeneutic intention. Discovering in each philosophical era a chaacteristic attitude towards the text--whether privilege, objectivity, or neutrality--Tuck argues that the continual reinterpretation of earlier scholarly readings is in fact at the (...) core of fruitful hermeneutic pursuit. (shrink)

The meaning of a science rooted in the sacred, its contrast to modern science and its pertinence to us today.

In this book Wilber presents a model of consciousness that encompasses empirical, psychological, and spiritual modes of understanding. Wilber examines three realms of knowledge: the empirical realm of the senses, the rational realm of the mind, and the contemplative realm of the spirit. Eye to Eye points the way to a broader, more inclusive understanding of ourselves and the universe.

This book is a friendly and accessible account of men and women's places in a universe of sex, soul, and spirit. Wilber examines the course of evolution as the unfolding manifestation of Spirit, from matter to life to mind, including the higher stages of spiritual development where Spirit becomes conscious of itself. The author offers striking and original views of topics of current interest and controversy- gender wars, multiculturalism, and ecology and environmental ethics among them. The result is an extraordinary (...) ride through the Kosmos. Now reissued as a 20th Anniversary Edition with a new afterword by Ken Wilber and Lana Wachowski. (shrink)