David Cooper explores and defends the view that a reality independent of human perspectives is necessarily indescribable, a "mystery." Other views are shown to be hubristic. Humanists, for whom "man is the measure" of reality, exaggerate our capacity to live without the sense of an independent measure. Absolutists, who proclaim our capacity to know an independent reality, exaggerate our cognitive powers. In this highly original book Cooper restores to philosophy a proper appreciation of mystery-that is what provides a measure of (...) our beliefs and conduct. (shrink)

The Gifford Lectures were established in 1885 at the universities of St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh to promote the discussion of 'Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term - in other words, the knowledge of God', and some of the world's most influential thinkers have delivered them. The 1901–2 lectures given in Edinburgh by American philosopher William James are considered by many to be the greatest in the series. The lectures were published in book form in 1902 (...) and have been reprinted many times. James, who was educated in the United States and Europe, and spent much of his career teaching philosophy at Harvard, was very influential in the development of modern psychology, and in these twenty lectures he explores the personal experience of religion. Some of the topics include religion and neurology, 'the sick soul', saintliness, and mysticism. (shrink)

Why do gardens matter so much and mean so much to people? That is the intriguing question to which David Cooper seeks an answer in this book. Given the enthusiasm for gardens in human civilization ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, it is surprising that the question has been so long neglected by modern philosophy. Now at last there is a philosophy of gardens. David Cooper identifies garden appreciation as a special human phenomenon distinct from both from the appreciation of (...) art and the appreciation of nature. He discusses the contribution of gardening and other garden-related pursuits to "the good life." And he distinguishes the many kinds of meanings that gardens may have, from their representation of nature to their spiritual significance. A Philosophy of Gardens will open up this subject to students and scholars of aesthetics, ethics, and cultural and environmental studies, and to anyone with a reflective interest in things horticultural. (shrink)

This reissue of an American philosophical classic includes a new preface by Cavell, in which he discusses the work's reception and influence. The work fosters a fascinating relationship between philosophy and literature both by augmenting his philosophical discussions with examples from literature and by applying philosophical theories to literary texts. Cavell also succeeds in drawing some very important parallels between the British analytic tradition and the continental tradition, by comparing skepticism as understood in Descartes, Hume, and Kant with philosophy of (...) language as practiced by Wittgenstein and Austin. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious experience. He claims that while none (...) of these arguments are deductively valid, they do give inductive support to theism and that, even when the argument from evil is weighed against them, taken together they offer good grounds to support the probability that there is a God. The overall structure of the discussion and its conclusion have been retained for this new edition, but much has been changed in order to strengthen the argumentation and to take account of Swinburne's subsequent work on the nature of consciousness and the problem of evil, and of the latest philosophical and scientific writing, especially in respect of the laws of nature and the argument from fine-tuning. This is now the definitive version of a classic in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The question of whether or not God exists is endlessly fascinating and profoundly important. Now two articulate spokesmen--one a Christian, the other an atheist--duel over God's existence in a lively and illuminating battle of ideas. In God?, William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong bring to the printed page two debates they held before live audiences, preserving all the wit, clarity, and immediacy of their public exchanges. With none of the opaque discourse of academic logicians and divinity-school theologians, the authors make (...) claims and comebacks that cut with precision. Their arguments are sharp and humorous, as each philosopher strikes quickly to the heart of his opponent's case. For example, Craig claims that we must believe in God to explain objective moral values, such as why rape is wrong. Sinnott-Armstrong responds that what makes rape wrong is the harm to victims of rape, so rape is immoral even if there is no God. From arguments about the nature of infinity and the Big Bang, to religious experience and divine action, to the resurrection of Jesus and the problem of evil, the authors treat us to a remarkable display of intelligence and insight--a truly thought-provoking exploration of a classic issue that remains relevant to contemporary life. (shrink)

This is the third volume in Alvin Plantinga's trilogy on the notion of warrant, which he defines as that which distinguishes knowledge from true belief. In this volume, Plantinga examines warrant's role in theistic belief, tackling the questions of whether it is rational, reasonable, justifiable, and warranted to accept Christian belief and whether there is something epistemically unacceptable in doing so. He contends that Christian beliefs are warranted to the extent that they are formed by properly functioning cognitive faculties, thus, (...) insofar as they are warranted, Christian beliefs are knowledge if they are true. (shrink)

For this 1897 publication, the American philosopher William James brought together ten essays, some of which were originally talks given to Ivy League societies. Accessible to a broader audience, these non-technical essays illustrate the author's pragmatic approach to belief and morality, arguing for faith and action in spite of uncertainty. James thought his audiences suffered 'paralysis of their native capacity for faith' while awaiting scientific grounds for belief. His response consisted in an attitude of 'radical empiricism', which deals practically rather (...) than ideologically with real-world phenomena. When facing a 'momentous' decision about belief, he says, we both can and must choose the best hypothesis. The first four essays apply this principle to religious faith, and the rest explore the pragmatic approach to such topics as determinism, ethics and individual achievement. James developed his ideas further in The Varieties of Religious Experience and Pragmatism, both of which are reissued in this series. (shrink)

"The lectures that follow were delivered at the Lowell Institute in Boston in November and December, 1906, and in January, 1907, at Columbia University, in New York."-Preface, pg. 3.

Introduction These essays have been written over a period of about ten years and have already been published separately in various places. ...

Please visit www.ArcManor.com for works by this and other authors.

W. V. Quine is one of the most eminent philosophers alive today. Now in his mid-eighties he has produced a sharp, sprightly book that encapsulates the whole of his philosophical enterprise, including his thinking on all the key components of his epistemological stance--especially the value of logic and mathematics. New readers of Quine may have to go slowly, fathoming for themselves the richness that past readers already know lies between these elegant lines. For the faithful there is much to ponder. (...) In this short book, based on lectures delivered in Spain in 1990, Quine begins by locating his work historically. He provides a lightning tour of the history of philosophy (particularly the history of epistemology), beginning with Plato and culminating in an appreciative sketch of Carnap's philosophical ambitions and achievements. This leads, in the second chapter, to an introduction to Quine's attempt to naturalize epistemology, which emphasizes his continuities with Carnap rather than the differences between them. The next chapters develop the naturalistic story of the development of science to take account of how our conceptual apparatus is enhanced so that we can view the world as containing re-identifiable objects. Having explained the role of observation sentences in providing a checkpoint for assessing scientific theories, and having despaired of constructing an empirical criterion to determine which sentences are meaningful, Quine in the remaining chapters takes up a variety of important issues about knowledge. He concludes with an extended treatment of his views about reference and meaning and his attitudes toward psychological and modal notions. The presentation is distinctive, and the many small refinements of detail and formulation will fascinate all who know Quine's philosophy. (shrink)

At present, there is an enormous gulf between the visibility of evil and the paucity of our intellectual resources for coming to grips with it. We have been flooded with images of death camps, terrorist attacks and horrendous human suffering. Yet when we ask what we mean by radical evil and how we are to account for it, we seem to be at a loss for proper responses. Bernstein seeks to discover what we can learn about the meaning of evil (...) and human responsibility. He turns to philosophers such as Kant, who coined the expression 'radical evil', as well as to Hegel and Schelling. He also examines more recent explorations of evil, namely the thinking of Freud and Nietzsche on the moral psychology of evil. Finally, he looks at the way in which three post-Holocaust thinkers - Emmanuel Levinas, Hans Jonas, and Hannah Arendt - have sought to come to grips with evil "after Auschwitz." Bernstein's primary concern throughout this challenging book is to enrich and deepen our understanding of evil in the contemporary world, and to emphasize the vigilance and personal responsibility required for combating it. Radical Evil will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy, social and political theory, and religious studies. (shrink)

Raimond Gaita draws moral philosophy away from the academic study of ethics and considers instead how real people actually think, talk and feel about morality. He explores our ideas of good and evil, and their link to our respect for human beings and the'preciousness' of each individual.

Instead of simply defending a denial of God's existence Le Poidevin presents instead a way of interpreting religious discourse which allows us to make sense of the role of religion in our spiritual and moral lives.

Selections from the notebooks of the distinguished philosopher discuss subjects such as music, religion, thinking, science, architecture, and civilization.

In 1938 Wittgenstein delivered a short course of lectures on aesthetics to a small group of students at Cambridge. The present volume has been compiled from notes taken down at the time by three of the students: Rush Rhees, Yorick Smythies, and James Taylor. They have been supplemented by notes of conversations on Freud (to whom reference was made in the course on aesthetics) between Wittgenstein and Rush Rhees, and by notes of some lectures on religious belief. As very little (...) is known of Wittgenstein's views on these subjects from his published works, these notes should be of considerable interest to students of contemporary philosophy. Further, their fresh and informal style should recommend Wittgenstein to those who find his Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations a little formidable. (shrink)

This paper considers briefly the approach to the problem of evil by Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and John Hick and argues that none of these approaches is entirely satisfactory. The paper then develops a different strategy for dealing with the problem of evil by expounding and taking seriously three Christian claims relevant to the problem: Adam fell; natural evil entered the world as a result of Adam's fall; and after death human beings go either to heaven or hell. Properly interpreted, (...) these claims form the basis for a consistent and coherent Christian solution to the problem of evil. (shrink)

This article considers a central ethically relevant interpersonal emotion, guilt. It is argued that guilt, as an irreducible moral category, has a constitutive role to play in our ways of conceptualizing our relations to other people. Without experiencing guilt, or being able to do so, we would not be capable of employing the moral concepts and judgments we do employ. Elaborating on this argument, the paper deals with what may be described as the "metaphysics of guilt." More generally, it is (...) suggested, through a case study on the concept of guilt, that a moral theory avoiding naïve emotivism yet emphasizing the role of emotions in morality can and should pay attention to the transcendental status of emotions such as guilt--emotions constitutive of our concept of moral seriousness. Instead of psychologizing moral emotions, the paper employs Raimond Gaita's Wittgenstein-inspired way of examining the place of the concepts of guilt and remorse in our ethical language-use. Finally, some methodological remarks on the possibility of transcendental reflection in moral philosophy are presented. While it is not necessary to commit oneself to any specific religious tradition in order to emphasize the constitutive role of guilt in the way suggested in the paper, it turns out that the moral depth of this concept requires that one is least open to religiously relevant ways of using moral language. In the fundamental metaphysical sense examined in the paper, guilt is a concept whose home language-game is religious rather than secular ethics. (shrink)

This essay examines critically a number of characteristics of transcendental philosophy. The question, ?What, if anything, distinguishes transcendental philosophy and transcendental arguments from other types of philosophy and argument??, is given a negative answer: nothing, no essential thing, demarcates transcendental argumentation or philosophy from other kinds of philosophical reflection. In particular, argumentative structure alone is not a defining feature of transcendental philosophy. Illustrative examples of recent debates on the meaning and philosophical relevance of the ?transcendental? are discussed in the essay: (...) e.g., attempts to ?naturalize? the transcendental, Wittgensteinian reflections on the limits of meaningful language, and ?merely methodological? interpretations of Kantian transcendental idealism. Through these case studies, it is shown how transcendental inquiry can be rearticulated in a pragmatist context. (shrink)

The question, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?', has a strong claim to be philosophy's central, and most perplexing, question; it has a capacity to set the head spinning which few other philosophical problems can rival. Bede Rundle challenges the stalemate between theistic and naturalistic explanations with a rigorous, properly philosophical approach, and presents some startlingly novel conclusions.

For the faithful there is much to ponder. In this short book, based on lectures delivered in Spain in 1990, Quine begins by locating his work historically.

Commenting upon some recent literature on the topic, this paper examinestwo strategies by means of which one might try to defend theism: (1) a pragmatic (Jamesian) strategy, which focuses on the idea that religiousbelief has beneficial consequences in the believer's life, and (2) a transcendental (Kantian) strategy, according to which theism is requiredas a condition of our self-understanding as ethically oriented creatures.Both strategies are found unsatisfactory, unless synthesized and thussupported by each other. While no argument, either pragmatic ortranscendental, can demonstrate (...) the existence of God, a pragmatictranscendental argument might have a legitimate role to play in thephilosophy of religion. The problem of relativism arises, however. It isconcluded that it remains unclear whether a religious believer could justifyher or his beliefs to anyone who does not already share those beliefs. (shrink)

This article considers a central ethically relevant interpersonal emotion, guilt. It is argued that guilt, as an irreducible moral category, has a constitutive role to play in our ways of conceptualizing our relations to other people. Without experiencing guilt, or being able to do so, we would not be capable of employing the moral concepts and judgments we do employ. Elaborating on this argument, the paper deals with what may be described as the "metaphysics of guilt." More generally, it is (...) suggested, through a case study on the concept of guilt, that a moral theory avoiding naïve emotivism yet emphasizing the role of emotions in morality can and should pay attention to the transcendental status of emotions such as guilt--emotions constitutive of our concept of moral seriousness. Instead of psychologizing moral emotions, the paper employs Raimond Gaita's Wittgenstein-inspired way of examining the place of the concepts of guilt and remorse in our ethical language-use. Finally, some methodological remarks on the possibility of transcendental reflection in moral philosophy are presented. While it is not necessary to commit oneself to any specific religious tradition in order to emphasize the constitutive role of guilt in the way suggested in the paper, it turns out that the moral depth of this concept requires that one is least open to religiously relevant ways of using moral language. In the fundamental metaphysical sense examined in the paper, guilt is a concept whose home language-game is religious rather than secular ethics. (shrink)

Noted philosopher Kai Nielsen offers an answer to this fundamental question - a question that reaches in to grasp at the very heart of ethics itself. Essentially, this innocent inquiry masks a confusion that so many of us get caught in as we think about moral issues. We fail to realize that there is a difference between judging human behavior within an ethical context, or set of moral principles, and justifying the principles themselves. According to Nielsen, it is precisely this (...) basic muddle that has spawned all sorts of challenges to morality, from relativism and intuitionism to egoism and skepticism. Nielsen first argues the case for these challenges in the strongest possible terms; then he shows that their failure to establish themselves demonstrates a fundamental flaw - an inability to understand what it means to have good reasons for the moral claims we make. In his search for "good reasons," Nielsen must face the innocent question "Why be moral?" He tries to show us that skirmishes among supporters of specific moral principles require a different sort of resolution than those that occur between groups of ethical principles. Justifying an action within a moral point of view is quite different from making the case for having a moral point of view in the first place. In its relentless search for the very basis of morality and the limits of moral justification, Why Be Moral? outlines the essential questions that will help us clear away confusion. Nielsen's approach will interest and delight informed readers and professionals alike. This vital work addresses itself to thoughtful people everywhere who are perplexed about morality and about the foundations of the moral life. (shrink)

The book is written with grace and wit; again and again, Neiman writes the kind of sentences we dream of uttering in the perfect conversation: where every mot is bon. This is exemplary philosophy.

Arguing for Atheism introduces a wide range of topics in the philosophy of religion and metaphysics. Robin Le Poidevin does not simply defend a denial of God's existence; he presents instead a way of intepreting religious discourse which allows us to make sense of the role of religion in our spiritual and moral lives. Ideal as a textbook for university courses in the philosophy of religion and metaphysics, Arguing for Atheism is also designed to be accessible, in its style and (...) its numerous explanations, to the general reader. (shrink)

Explores the relationship between philosophers' and psychoanalysts' attempts to discover how man thinks and perceives himself.

Raimond Gaita's Good and Evil is one of the most important, original and provocative books on the nature of morality to have been published in recent years. It is essential reading for anyone interested in what it means to talk about good and evil. Gaita argues that questions about morality are inseparable from the preciousness of each human being, an issue we can only address if we place the idea of remorse at the centre of moral life. Drawing on an (...) astonishing range of thinkers and writers, including Plato, Wittgenstein, George Orwell and Primo Levi, Gaita also reflects on the place of reason and truth in morality and ultimately how questions about good and evil are connected to the meaning of our lives. This revised edition of Good and Evil includes a substantial new preface and afterword by the author. (shrink)

Raimond Gaita's _Good and Evil_ is one of the most important, original and provocative books on the nature of morality to have been published in recent years. It is essential reading for anyone interested in what it means to talk about good and evil. Gaita argues that questions about morality are inseparable from the preciousness of each human being, an issue we can only address if we place the idea of remorse at the centre of moral life. Drawing on an (...) astonishing range of thinkers and writers, including Plato, Wittgenstein, George Orwell and Primo Levi, Gaita also reflects on the place of reason and truth in morality and ultimately how questions about good and evil are connected to the meaning of our lives. This revised edition of _Good and Evil_ includes a substantial new preface and afterword by the author. (shrink)

Pragmatism, the single originally American philosophical tradition, has in recent decades once again become widely discussed in many fields of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and moral philosophy. This study seeks to show, both historically and systematically, that the issue of «human nature, » the main problem of philosophical anthropology, is (or at least should be) at the center of pragmatistic philosophizing. The author formulates a contemporary version of pragmatism largely based on William James's (1842-1910) (...) work, arguing that such a neo-Jamesian framework also can meet postmodernistic and irrationalistic threats. (shrink)

This book examines the issue of moral realism from a pragmatist point of view, drawing attention to our human practices of ethical evaluation and deliberation. It defends the essentially ungrounded and humanly fundamental place of ethics in our thought and action. Ethics must remain beyond justification and ubiquitous in our human form(s) of life.

In this marvellous book, Raimond Gaita discusses ideas about love and hatred, good and evil, guilt and forgiveness. Moving, wise and inspiring, A Common Humanity explores personal, political and philosophical ideas about the kind of society and the sort of public conversation we might have in the twenty-first century. 'Raimond Gaita's insights are original and his prose is as eloquent as it is affecting.' Economist, Books of the Year, 2000.

Waldo (philosophy, Susquehanna U.) proposes that spiritual inquiry is not a matter of formulating and defending a theory of knowledge, but of cultivating a certain kind of character and style of thinking.

The cross-fruition between analytical philosophy and continental philosophical traditions has stimulated a wide-ranging debate about the role of philosophy and the use of argument and reason in culture. Through a discussion of salient themes in the analytical tradition, in the work of the later Wittgenstein, and in critical theory,Transformative Philosophy articulates a novel conception of philosophy as a transformative care for self and others.

Wittgenstein is arguably the greatest philosopher of the last hundred years and scepticism is one of the central problems that modern philosophy faces. This collection is the first to be devoted to an examination of how that great philosopher's work bears on this fundamental philosophical problem. Wittgenstein's reaction to scepticism is complex, articulating both a sense that sceptical problems are ultimately unreal and a sense that scepticism teaches us something about the fundamental character of the human predicament. The essays, specially (...) written for this collection by distinguished philosophers and commentators on Wittgenstein, explore that reaction, addressing, in particular, scepticism about the existence of the external world and of other minds. In doing so, it explores issues not only in theory of knowledge but also in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, language, perception and literature, as well as raising questions about the nature of philosophy itself. Several of the papers address the work of Stanley Cavell, perhaps the most influential commentator on the work of Wittgenstein, and Cavell replies in the final pieces to four of those papers. This collection is essential reading for students and scholars of Wittgenstein and anyone interested in the debate surrounding scepticism. (shrink)

_The Contradictions of Modern Moral Philosophy_ is a highly original and radical critique of contemporary moral theory. Paul Johnston demonstrates that much recent moral philosophy is confused about the fundamental issue of whether there are correct moral judgements. He shows that the standard modern approaches to ethics cannot justify - or even make much sense of - traditional moral beliefs. Applied rigorously, these approaches suggest that we should reject ethics as a set of outdated and misguided claims. Rather than facing (...) up to this conclusion, most recent moral philosophy consists of attempts to find some ways of preserving moral beliefs. This places a contradiction at the heart of moral philosophy. As a resilt it is often impossible to tell whether a contemporary philosopher ultimately rejects or endorses the idea of objective right and wrong. On the basis of a Wittgenstein approach Paul Johnston puts forward an alternative account of ethics that avoids this contradiction and recognises that the central issues of ethics cannot be resolved by conceptual analysis. He then uses this account to highlight the contradictions of important contemporary moral theorists such as Bernard Williams, Alasdair MacIntyre, Thomas Nagel and Charles Taylor. (shrink)