We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Drawing from religion and the human sciences, particularly psychology after Freud, the author attempts to demonstrate that the fear of death is man's central ...

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind provides a lively and accessible introduction to all the main themes and arguments currently being debated in this area. The book examines and criticizes four major theories of mind: Dualism, Mind/Brain Identity, Behaviourism and Functionalism. It argues that while consciousness and our mental lives depend upon physical processes in the brain, they are not reducible to those processes. The differences between mental and physical states, mind/body causality, the problem of other minds, and personal (...) identity are also explored in full. The second edition of this well respected text has been revised to include a new chapter which explores Aristotle’s philosophy of psychology and mind. It also includes new material on the Turing test and has been expanded and updated throughout. The book is designed to help students think for themselves about all the issues identified above, and contains exercises throughout the text to stimulate and challenge the reader. Objectives are clearly set out at the start of every chapter to enable students to check their understanding as they proceed, and each chapter ends with questions to consider. There are discussions of the most cited contemporary writers in the field, so that the reader can gain a rounded perspective of the debates. (shrink)

Are there really beliefs? Or are we learning (from neuroscience and psychology, presumably) that, strictly speaking, beliefs are figments of our imagination, items in a superceded ontology? Philosophers generally regard such ontological questions as admitting just two possible answers: either beliefs exist or they don't. There is no such state as quasi-existence; there are no stable doctrines of semi-realism. Beliefs must either be vindicated along with the viruses or banished along with the banshees. A bracing conviction prevails, then, to the (...) effect that when it comes to beliefs (and other mental items) one must be either a realist or an eliminative materialist. (shrink)

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

This is Werner S. Pluhar's translation of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urtheilskraft) for Hackett Publications (Indianapolis, Indiana). ISBN 9780872200258 (paperback).

A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs. These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice". The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs are firmly fixed in the student's mind. Scientists take great pains to defend the assumption that scientists know what the world is like...To this end, "normal science" will often suppress novelties which undermine its foundations. Research (...) is therefore not about discovering the unknown, but rather "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education". (shrink)

"This is an important book, and no one interested in issues which touch on the free will will want to ignore it."--Ethics. In this stimulating and thought-provoking book, the author defends the thesis that free will is incompatible with determinism. He disputes the view that determinism is necessary for moral responsbility. Finding no good reason for accepting determinism, but believing moral responsiblity to be indubitable, he concludes that determinism should be rejected.

This current article discusses the "perils of eclecticism as therapeutic orientation". Although some who label themselves "eclectic" recognize the importance of a well-articulated theory in their work, the vast majority attempt to avoid theorizing. Their main fear appears to be that a theoretical system will bias their interpretations of clinical or empirical data and thus leave them inflexible and closed-minded. The present author appreciates the possibility of theoretical speculations becoming unmonitored biases, but eclectics must also appreciate that biases cannot be (...) avoided, only the lack of monitoring can be avoided. In fact, to delude oneself into thinking that one has avoided biases is to guarantee that one is operating from an unmonitored bias. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

John Searle's Speech Acts (1969) and Expression and Meaning (1979) developed a highly original and influential approach to the study of language. But behind both works lay the assumption that the philosophy of language is in the end a branch of the philosophy of the mind: speech acts are forms of human action and represent just one example of the mind's capacity to relate the human organism to the world. The present book is concerned with these biologically fundamental capacities, and, (...) though third in the sequence, in effect it provides the philosophical foundations for the other two. Intentionality is taken to be the crucial mental phenomenon, and its analysis involves wide-ranging discussions of perception, action, causation, meaning, and reference. In all these areas John Searle has original and stimulating views. He ends with a resolution of the 'mind-body' problem. (shrink)

First published in 1949 expressly to introduce logical positivism to English speakers. Reichenbach, with Rudolph Carnap, founded logical positivism, a form of epistemofogy that privileged scientific over metaphysical truths.

Since the inception of the psychology of personality, psychologists have been trying to account for regularities in behavior. The preferred construct has been the personality trait as an inner disposition that directs conduct and which is common to all people. Although found lacking during the 1970s, the search for sources of direction from within has been resurrected in the form of the five-factor theory. According to this approach there are five underling structural factors common to all people and independent of (...) cultural influences—an asocial, ahistorical, biologically based conception. Examination of the theory finds it to be dealing with traits of temperament rather than personality and judges it insufficient on that basis. Rather than conceiving of personality as fixed and universal, it is argued that personality is an adaptation worked out in the cultural and historical context of the individual life. It is further contended that a reconsideration of the personality theory of Gordon Allport will provide a better basis for understanding personality and personality traits specifically. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This book was written primarily as a contribution to the field, but its plan excellently suits it for use as a text in courses in metaphysics, types of ...

Previous attempts to construct an integrative framework for personality psychology are primarily descriptions of what the field looks like today rather than analyses of its logical structure and therefore threaten to reify and perpetuate the current structure of the field. I aim here to draw attention to logically important points that may help to integrate the field and suggest potentially fruitful research paths that are unrealized due to historical contingency. My point of departure is that the crucial defining feature of (...) personality psychology is that it studies human beings not just as mechanical systems, but also as rational agents, whose experiences and actions are imbued with intentionality and meaning. I argue that it follows if we take this core feature of personality seriously that the study of personality consists of two equally basic and mutually irreducible projects: the study of traits, defined as objective patterns of behavior, and the study of worldviews, defined as subjective sources of meaning. I argue that worldviews are, contrary to popular belief, not inherently less universal, or in other ways less basic, than traits, although they have seldom been studied systematically, and that both universalistic and historic- cultural levels of analysis can be usefully combined with both the study of traits and the study of worldviews. I conclude by emphasizing the importance of integration across the trait- worldview divide, as well as the nomothetic- idiothetic divide, for the development of richer and more unified portraits of personalities. (shrink)

This essay defends the role of law-like explanation in the social sciences by showing that the "argument from complexity" fails to demonstrate a difference in kind between the subject matter of natural and social science. There are problems internal to the argument itself - stemming from reliance on an overly idealized view of natural scientific practice - and reason to think that, based upon an analogy with a more sophisticated understanding of natural science, which makes use of "redescriptions" in the (...) face of obstacles like complexity, we have reason to be optimistic about the prospects for a nomological social science. (shrink)

This book argues that we are not equipped to understand the workings of conciousness, despite its objective naturalness.

Within contemporary personality psychology there is widespread consensus that, at long last, the basic elements of "the" human personality have been empirically discovered, and that the systematic search for the underlying causes and consequences of personality differences can be pursued on this basis. The putatively basic trait dimensions are neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and are referred to collectively as "the Big Five." In the present article, this perspective on the psychology of personality is examined critically and found wanting. (...) It is argued that neither the "Big Five" framework in particular nor trait "psychology" more generally is adequate as the basis for a scientific psychology of the human person. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

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

This article defends laws in the social sciences. Arguments against social laws are considered and rejected based on the "open" nature of social theory, the multiple realizability of social predicates, the macro and/or teleological nature of social laws, and the inadequacies of belief-desire psychology. The more serious problem that social laws are usually qualified ceteris paribus is then considered. How the natural sciences handle ceteris paribus laws is discussed and it is argued that such procedures are possible in the social (...) sciences. The article ends by arguing that at least some social research is roughly as well as confirmed as good work in evolutionary biology and ecology. (shrink)

. My main claim is that explanations are fundamentally about relations between concepts and not, for example, essentially requiring laws, causes, or particular initial conditions. Nor is their linguistic form essential. I begin by showing that this approach solves some well-known old problems and then proceeds to argue my case using heuristic analogies with mathematical proofs. I find that an explanation is something that connects explanandum and explanans by apprehensible steps that penetrate into more fundamental levels than that of explanandum. (...) This leads to a deeper discussion of what it means to be more fundamental. Although I am not able to give a general definition, I argue that linguistic entities and empirical concepts are usually not fundamental, much relying on the distinction between complete and depleted ideas or experiences. (shrink)