Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition.

Kant's attempt to establish the principles behind the faculty of judgment remains one of the most important works on human reason.

"Every word, like a sacred object, has its place. No _précis_ is possible. This extraordinary book must be read."—Edmund Carpenter, _New York Times Book Review _ "No outline is possible; I can only say that reading this book is a most exciting intellectual exercise in which dialectic, wit, and imagination combine to stimulate and provoke at every page."—Edmund Leach, _Man _ "Lévi-Strauss's books are tough: very scholarly, very dense, very rapid in argument. But once you have mastered him, human history (...) can never be the same, nor indeed can one's view of contemporary society. And his latest book, _The Savage Mind_, is his most comprehensive and certainly his most profound. Everyone interested in the history of ideas _must_ read it; everyone interested in human institutions _should _read it."—J. H. Plumb, _Saturday Review_ "A constantly stimulating, informative and suggestive intellectual challenge."—Geoffrey Gorer, _The Observer_, London. (shrink)

One of the cornerstone books of Western philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's seminal treatise, where he seeks to define the nature of reason itself and builds his own unique system of philosophical thought with an approach known as transcendental idealism. He argues that human knowledge is limited by the capacity for perception and attempts a logical designation of two varieties of knowledge: a posteriori, the knowledge acquired through experience; and a priori, knowledge not derived through experience. This accurate (...) translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn offers a simple and direct rendering of Kant's work that is suitable for readers at all levels. (shrink)

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

The present volume brings Arendt's notes for these lectures together with other of her texts on the topic of judging and provides important clues to the likely direction of Arendt's thinking in this area.

A milestone in the development of post-war Marxist thought.

The Metaphysics of Morals is Kant's major work in applied moral philosophy in which he deals with the basic principles of rights and of virtues. It comprises two parts: the 'Doctrine of Right', which deals with the rights which people have or can acquire, and the 'Doctrine of Virtue', which deals with the virtues they ought to acquire. Mary Gregor's translation, revised for publication in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy series, is the only complete translation of the (...) whole text, and includes extensive annotation on Kant's difficult and sometimes unfamiliar vocabulary. A new introduction by Roger Sullivan sets the work in its historical and philosophical context. This volume will be of wide interest to students of ethics and of legal and political philosophy. (shrink)

Philosophers are often asked for their views on the "meaning of the times." But how should philosophy deal with world events? And what makes a philosopher more qualified than anyone else to editorialize in the daily paper? In this book, Descombes's intention is not to offer his own reading of the signs of the times, but to interrogate modern philosophers about how they come up with the barometers they use to tell us about modern reason and the spirit of the (...) times. For Descombes, a "philosophical discourse of modernity" should be rejected, for the true subject of modernity belongs not to philosophers, but to writers, moralists, and sociologists of individualism. (shrink)

With this volume, Werner Pluhar completes his work on Kant's three Critiques, an accomplishment unique among English language translators of Kant. At once accurate, fluent, and accessible, Pluhar's rendition of the Critique of Practical Reason meets the standards set in his widely respected translations of the Critique of Judgement (1987) and the Critique of Pure Reason (1996).

The aim of this dissertation is to locate and defend a specifically Kantian account of political agency, one that is implicit in Kant's short essays on history. The dissertation attempts, first, to show how this account emerges from Kant's more general thinking about moral teleology, and, second, to suggest the relevance of this account for contemporary political theory. ;Part I seeks to motivate these issues by sketching the current debate in political theory between Kantian constructivists and their Nietzschean critics . (...) I suggest that this debate--which has centered around the question of what normative commitments are necessary or desirable for political theory--will remain inconclusive unless we can understand what it means to be a political agent. ;Part II attempts to show that a suggestive answer to this question is already implicit in Kant--specifically, in the culmination of Kant's various attempts to derive the assumptions of moral teleology from the logic presupposed by a moral agent. After a general defense of Kant's strategy of argument, I examine Kant's attempts to prove the immortality of the soul and the existence of God, and to offer a naturalistic defense of historical progress grounded in the unsocial sociability of human beings. Understanding the failures of these arguments sets the stage for my defense of Kant's late essay, "An Old Question Raised Again: Is the Human Race Continually Progressing," in which I argue that Kant has successfully located a commitment to historical progress in the attitude of a political agent. ;Finally, Part III suggests the utility of this description of political agency for a "non-constructivist" Kantian political theory. I argue that such an approach is partially but not fully exemplified by the work of Michael Oakeshott, and I favorably contrast this approach with the constructivist Kantianism offered by Habermas. (shrink)