Winner of the 1975 National Book Award, this brilliant and widely acclaimed book is a powerful philosophical challenge to the most widely held political and social positions of our age--liberal, socialist, and conservative.

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.

A central theme throughout the impressive series of philosophical books and articles Stephen Toulmin has published since 1948 is the way in which assertions and opinions concerning all sorts of topics, brought up in everyday life or in academic research, can be rationally justified. Is there one universal system of norms, by which all sorts of arguments in all sorts of fields must be judged, or must each sort of argument be judged according to its own norms? In The Uses (...) of Argument Toulmin sets out his views on these questions for the first time. In spite of initial criticisms from logicians and fellow philosophers, The Uses of Argument has been an enduring source of inspiration and discussion to students of argumentation from all kinds of disciplinary background for more than forty years. (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.

Many modern societies are committed to harmonizing their laws and public policies with their deeply felt moral values. To succeed in this accomplishment is to employ methods that move rationally from fundamental values to the policy incarnations that the society installs and maintains. This paper is an examination into what this method ought to be if policies are to instantiate agreed-upon fundamental moral commitments rather than the arbitrary whims of tyranny and anarchism or the political expedience of compromise.

The installation in a society of ad hoc and contradictory legal policies over a foundation of equal liberty and justice under the rule of law results in social disorder. When these policies reflect economic interests, A feudal-Like form of economic determinism begins to close in. This in turn breeds inequalities, Frustrated expectations, Political favoritism and authoritarianism. Further, The 'success' of such policies in terms of visible changes in the social order cannot in principle be known. The paper demonstrates these social (...) disorders in terms of a current american mandate called 'reverse discrimination' which coerces industries and universities to favor and promote the economic and educational interests of some persons over others. (shrink)

From the Introduction: This inquiry is concerned with the themes of praxis and action in four philosophic movements: Marxism, existentialism, pragmatism, and analytic philosophy. It is rare that these four movements are considered in a single inquiry, for there are profound differences of emphasis, focus, terminology, and approach represented by these styles of thought. Many philosophers believe that similarities among these movements are superficial and that a close examination of them will reveal only hopelessly unbridgeable cleavages. While respecting the genuine (...) fundamental differences of these movements, this inquiry is undertaken in the spirit of showing that there are important common themes and motifs in what first appears to be a chaotic babble of voices. I intend to show that the concern with man as an agent has been a primary focal point of each of these movements and further that each contributes something permanent and important to our understanding of the nature and context of human activity. (shrink)

"Thirty-five years ago few could have predicted that The New Science of Politics would be a best-seller by political theory standards. Compressed within the Draconian economy of the six Walgreen lectures is a complete theory of man, society, and history, presented at the most profound and intellectual level. . . . Voegelin's [work] stands out in bold relief from much of what has passed under the name of political science in recent decades. . . . The New Science is aptly (...) titled, for Voegelin makes clear at the outset that a 'return to the specific content' of premodern political theory is out of the question. . . . The subtitle of the book, An Introduction, clearly indicates that The New Science of Politics is an invitation to join the search for the recovery of our full humanity."--From the new Foreword by Dante Germino "This book must be considered one of the most enlightening essays on the character of European politics that has appeared in half a century. . . . This is a book powerful and vivid enough to make agreement or disagreement with even its main thesis relatively unimportant."-- Times Literary Supplement "Voegelin . . . is one of the most distinguished interpreters to Americans of the non-liberal streams of European thought. . . . He brings a remarkable breadth of knowledge, and a historical imagination that ranges frequently into brilliant insights and generalizations."--Francis G. Wilson, American Political Science Review "This book is beautifully constructed . . . his erudition constantly brings a startling illumination."--Martin Wright, International Affairs "A ledestar to thinking men who seek a restoration of political science on the classic and Christian basis . . . a significant accomplishment in the retheorization of our age."--Anthony Harrigan, Christian Century. (shrink)

Thomas S. Kuhn's classic book is now available with a new index.

Can we justify our most basic beliefs about morality, religion and the nature of the world? Can there be a rational and objective way of choosing between alternative societies, modes of life or world-views? Dr Trigg shows how philosophical analysis is relevant to these questions and criticizes the tendency to emphasize notions of commitment and convention at the expense of truth and reason. He draws parallels between issues that are often too isolated from each other and identifies a cluster of (...) related ideas, all of which stress the notion of self-contained conceptual systems that define their own standards of rationality. First published in 1973, this book will interest professional philosophers as a vigorous and distinctive exposition of several fundamental philosophical problems and more especially it can be used as an introduction for students to a wide range of philosophical problems. (shrink)

Aristotle maintains that every man has, or should have, a single end, a target at which he aims. The doctrine is stated in E.N. I 2. ‘If, then, there is some end of the things we do which we desire for its own sake, and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else, clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall (...) we not, like archers who have a mark to aim t, be more likely to hit upon what is right?’. Aristotle does not here prove, nor need we understand him as claiming to prove, that there is only one end which is desired for itself. He points out correctly that, if there are objects which are desired but not desired for themselves, there must be some object which is desired for itself. The passage further suggests that, if there were one such object and one only, this fact would be important and helpful for the conduct of life. (shrink)

In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Walgreen Lectures which spawned the work, _Natural Right and History_ remains as controversial and essential as ever. "Strauss... makes a significant contribution towards an understanding of the intellectual crisis in which we find ourselves... [and] brings (...) to his task an admirable scholarship and a brilliant, incisive mind."—John H. Hallowell, _American Political Science Review_ Leo Strauss was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Political Science at the University of Chicago. (shrink)

The problem of the critical assessment of theories across paradigms raised by Kuhn is not resolved, it is argued, either by Scheffler's appeal to initial credibility or by Lakatos' conception of a research program. It is argued further that, in these contexts, the notion of reasonable choice by individuals makes no sense. The conclusion supports Feyerabend's position of "epistemological anarchism.".

Since its publication in 1965, Brian Barry's seminal work has occupied an important role in the revival of Anglo-American political philosophy. A number of ideas and terms in it have become part of the standard vocabulary, such as the distinction between "ideal-regarding" and "want-regarding" principles and the division of principles into aggregative and distributive. The book provided the first precise analysis of the concept of political values having trade-off relations and its analysis of the notion of the public interest has (...) also been significant. (shrink)

Introduction It is by no means obvious that someone interested in politics and society needs to concern himself with philosophy; nor that, in particular, ...

According to an accepted view of the nature of evaluation, which many trace to Hume, knowledge does not provide us with the criteria for judging whether something is good. For this, it is said, we need something like a pro-attitude such as C. L. Stevenson argues for, or a decision such as R. M. Hare argues for. Some act of the will is required to create the criteria for evaluation. I shall argue against this view. I shall argue that the (...) criteria for evaluating something are identical with the criteria for classifying it and that, therefore, the knowledge which provides us with the criteria for classification provides us with the criteria for evaluation.In Section I, I give a brief account of the way in which knowledge provides the criteria for a classification and the significance of borderline cases and degree differences in classification. In Section II, I develop the idea of degree differences in classification and tie it to the idea of evaluation. In Section III, I defend my account of evaluative criteria by contrasting it with R. M. Hare's account, and I argue that the criteria for the class concept of man are at the basis of moral evaluation. I end with a brief illustration of my thesis from Kant's Metaphysics of Morals. (shrink)

The paper argues that the idea of prima facie rights implies insurmountable difficulties in connection with the function such rights are said to have in a scheme of justice. G vlastos's version of prima facie rights theories is scrutinized as typical and more advanced than others. The paper shows that natural rights are contextually absolute; they cannot (morally) be overruled in a context of normal political circumstances but may have to be disregarded whenever politics is impossible. Vlastos's insight is preserved (...) without sacrificing the integrity of a scheme of justice based on natural rights. (shrink)

Thoughts and other mental states are defined by their role in a functional system. Since it is easier to determine when we have knowledge than when reasoning has occurred, Gilbert Harman attempts to answer the latter question by seeing what assumptions about reasoning would best account for when we have knowledge and when not. He describes induction as inference to the best explanation, or more precisely as a modification of beliefs that seeks to minimize change and maximize explanatory coherence. Originally (...) published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

The book attempts, in as comprehensive a way as possible, to make clear the central issues for the theory of knowledge, so as to provide a framework for that subject and also to indicate something of the way in which, as the author believes, the issues should be faced.

Based on author's dissertation--Yale University.

The Pseudo-Science of B.F. Skinner was Professor Tibor Machan's first book. Now, nearly forty years after its initial publication and after three dozen additional books published by Machan, it is available again through University Press of America. This study is still alive with its initial inquiry into the work of B.F. Skinner, and it is just as influential upon young students today as it was forty years ago. Was Skinner a bona fide scientist or an amateur metaphysician? Was Skinner correct (...) to hold that only what can be observed matters when it comes to understanding ourselves? Was he correct that free will is fictional and morality is pre-scientific? Professor Machan's fascinating inquiry into Skinner's radical studies is a salute and a challenge to the corpus of his work. (shrink)

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