Book review : The philosophy of person‐centred healthcareBy Derek Mitchell, Michael Loughlin, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2023.201 pp. £64.99. ISBN (10): 1‐5275‐9058‐5, ISBN (13): 978‐1‐5275‐9058‐8.

Leslie Allan reviews Professor Losee's tracing of the history of the philosophy of science from its beginning with Aristotle in Ancient Greece, through the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment to the work of contemporary philosophers. In this review, Allan also provides a summary of each chapter and commentary on Losee's analysis.

Mark Coeckelbergh starts his book with a very powerful picture based on a real incident: On the 9th of January 2020, Robert Williams was wrongfully arrested by Detroit police officers in front of his two young daughters, wife and neighbors. For 18 hours the police would not disclose the grounds for his arrest (American Civil Liberties Union 2020; Hill 2020). The decision to arrest him was primarily based on a facial detection algorithm which matched Mr. Williams’ driving license photo (...) with the picture of a man who was suspected of watch theft two years earlier. Not only did the computer ‘get it wrong’ as one of the detectives said, when Mr. Williams made them aware that the picture of the suspect obviously wasn’t resembling him, the probably unreliable algorithm very likely contributed to racial discrimination (Hill 2020). It is well documented that many available facial detection algorithms at this time had significant problems (e.g. a comparably high false positive rate) with respect to black persons, like Mr. Williams (NIST 2019). Multiple causes may exist, such as unbalanced training datasets and insufficient optimization. Coeckelbergh compares the disturbing case of Mr. Williams with a political interpretation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, where the protagonist, Josef K., is accused of an unspecified crime by an opaque, oppressive and absurd bureaucracy: “In the 21st-century United States, Josef K. is black and is falsely accused by an algorithm, without explanation” (p. 2). (shrink)

This book tries to collate the different ideas of socialistic thought contained in the vast corpus of Swami Vivekananda's writings and speeches. His humanism led to numerous social activities with the idea that God is present in human beings. He said that education was the solution to all social problems.

Kant is probably one of the most misunderstood philosophers in the history of Western thought. Some of the most well-known and pervasive objections to Kant’s practical philosophy often rest on considerable misunderstandings of his central theses or a poor and superficial reading of his work. A common misconception is that in Kant’s practical philosophy there is no place or role for human happiness. In Happiness in Kant’s Practical Philosophy: Morality, Indirect Duties, and Welfare Rights, Alice Pinheiro Walla dispels this misunderstanding (...) by elucidating Kant’s conception of happiness (understood in broadly hedonist terms) and showing that, for Kant, the pursuit of happiness plays an important role in our personal and collective lives. This means that, far from endorsing an ascetic ideal of the moral agent, as it is commonly thought, Kant’s system embraces an ideal of the human life in which there is significant space, and even a duty, to pursue pleasurable endeavours. Somehow surprisingly, in Pinheiro Walla’s reading, Kant’s ethics is arguably less demanding than standard interpretations of Aristotelian and Utilitarian ethical theories. (shrink)

Book Review of Brian Fay's Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science.

In this paper, I examine the book "Relations: Ontology and Philosophy of Religion" which is a collection of invited and selected papers dealing with both ontology and the philosophy of religion. It aims at showing how the two disciplines can fruitfully interact and provide useful tools for philosophical investigation. The background is relational ontology and analytical philosophy.

Merleau-Ponty and Contemporary Philosophy is an ambitious collected volume of fourteen chapters, accompanied by an epilogue by Jean-Luc Nancy, in which current Merleau-Ponty scholars together aim to demonstrate the urgent relevance of Merleau-Ponty to contemporary philosophy across a range of fields including ontology, epistemology, anthropology, embodiment, animality, politics, language, aesthetics, and art. Divided into four thematic sections, namely, “Legacies”, “Mind and Nature”, “Politics, Power, and Institution” and “Art and Aesthetics”, this collected volume provides a rich resource for Merleau-Ponty scholars who (...) are interested in novel applications and understudied aspects of his thought. It also opens up Merleau-Ponty’s oeuvre to the general reader, presenting many possible entry-ways into the diversity of his work. In my review of Merleau-Ponty and Contemporary Philosophy, I suggest that each of its thematic sections could have been the subject of a separate volume themselves, and that the volume would then perhaps have not suffered from a number of poorly developed lines of argumentation. But I consider that the inclusion of all these thematically diverse sections in a single volume nonetheless presents a forceful display of the wide-ranging relevance of Merleau-Ponty’s work to contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Daniel R. DeNicola’s Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction begins (pg. ix) with an anonymous reviewer’s quote, paraphrased here: ‘The author of an introductory ethics textbook has an impossible task, creating a work both accessible to undergraduates and rigorous enough for philosophers.’ DeNicola can of course be forgiven for not achieving this impossible task. Still, some attempts are better than others. After surveying the text content, I explain why I discourage instructors from using this textbook in introductory ethics courses.

At the time in which quantum mechanics engages in talks of multiverses and quantum technologies helps to realize a concept of metaverse, the so-called ‘virtual life’ has become the extended reality. Chalmers in his book rejects a dichotomy of reality and illusion and consctructs a trichotomy by adding virtuality in order to offer a proposition that a virtual world is a part of the extended reality. The author sees new philosophical challenges in this new reality. For an example, as (...) we are bound to allow some form of consciousness to a robot in a context of simulation there are questions of status of personal agency or personal identity. Traditional subjects of ontology, knowledge, and value come to us as new challenges. Despite difficulties in discussions of some topics, the author leads us to see a new horizon of possible philosophical debates for a new reality. ___ Journal of The Society of Philosophical Studies, South Korea, 138(2022.9): pp. 143-156. (shrink)

What is the nature of reality? The truth is that no academic anywhere in the world really knows the answer to this question. As long as this remains the case, one can exclude neither the possibility that parallel universes, spirit ontologies, or telepathy exist nor the possibility that reality could be a time-space transcending non-local awareness. Neither scientists nor scholars can, therefore, ever reject epistemologies based on any of these presumptions. Enlightenment-based rationalists and empiricists, however, did just that. The point (...) of departure of Roothaan’s deconstructionist environmental philosophy is, on the contrary, that since reality itself is unknown, the question of what nature remains undefined at best. Human relationships towards nature in various cultures and eras can then be perceived as the outcome of an ongoing negotiation. In this way, Roothaan aims to open up a space for intercultural philosophical and dialogical thinking about the contributions and limitations of various epistemologies that philosophers and others have used to discuss the relations to their environment. (shrink)

Indian philosophy has been often denied the official designation of “philosophy,” and many academics around the world have dismissed it as vague theology, at best. The main reason for such a relegation has been the inaccessibility of the languages in which the source texts were written. This problem was aggravated by the lack of readable English translations. Though, beginning in the nineteenth century many books on Indian philosophy have been written in English, most of them are inaccessible to scholars outside (...) the tradition, both in language and approach. If Indian philosophy is to be taken seriously, and if academics and lay alike have to benefit from the treasures hidden therein, it is necessary that the original concepts and theories are made more accessible and understandable—even to the beginner. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy is a welcome step in this direction. (shrink)

Book review of Rozmarin's Vulnerable Futures, Transformative Pasts (2017).

The author tries to interpret their commentaries on the Gita to ‘develop two competing visions of the relationship between metaphysics and theology, and therefore of how one may relate inquiry to faith’ (xx). In this task, the author has been remarkably successful and he also gives us a wonderful comparative study of Shankara and Ramanuja. Anyone interested in these two thinkers should definitely read this volume.

This book review, published in Kant Studien 108.3 (Sept. 2017), pp.467-471, summarizes and assesses Lawrence R. Pasternack's book, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant on Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: An Interpretation and Defense (London and New York: Routledge, 2014).

A review of Rebecca DeYoung's book, "Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies", 2nd ed.

Political Philosophy history is beyond centenaries and there are many books written in each time period and some of them are just the discussion of the current time and other have their impact for long after. With my interest about political philosophy I found this book humanity by” Zaman Ali” just with randomly search on internet and I found it interesting by its label as it is human philosophy and then read it.

A review of Jukka Mikkonen's 'Philosophy, literature and understanding: On reading and cognition' (2021).

Róisín Lally’s Sustainability in the Anthropocene provides a wealth of essays on the philosophical meanings and implications of renewable technologies, as well as glimpses of novel ways toward a sustainable future that integrate deeply meaningful ways of being for humans. The edited collection features some of the most reputable thinkers in the philosophy of technology, such as Don Ihde, Babette Babich, and Trish Glazebrook, as well as some newcomers with novel perspectives that need to be taken into consideration not only (...) for fellow philosophers, but for anyone interested in the future of our increasingly vulnerable planet. The book is divided into four parts: defining sustainability, exploring the relationship between sustainability and particular renewable technologies, investigating sustainability and design, and finally examining sustainability and ethics. The authors engage in applications of various philosophers from the Continental tradition, most prominently the work of Martin Heidegger. I provide a brief summary of the various sections and highlight key arguments while providing some commentary with an aim to keep the conversation going. (shrink)

This is review of the book "Rightful Relations with Distant Strangers: Kant, the EU, and the Wider World" by Aravind Ganesh, which discusses the relevance of Immanuel Kant's legal philosophy for the European Union's exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction. The book explores this issue from the perspectives of public international law and private law theory as well.

This book aims to see how the victim and the ‘identity of the Real’ are wedded to philosophers and intellectuals. Towards this aim Laruelle does not ‘leave philosophy to its own authority’ just as he does not ‘leave theology or religious beliefs to their own authorities’ (119).

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak asked a question in 1988: ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ That question was the expression of a lifetime of observation of the marginalised and witnessing of attempts to civilise the ‘aborigine’. Eventually, this question led to A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (CPR) in 1999. A seminal work, this book unsettled and reoriented the thoughts of scholars, brought up new questions and insights, and the very construct of civilisation and culture was (...) challenged. In 2000 a group of scholars, of whom many were Gayatri’s students—the first name of the celebrated thinker is being used in this review in keeping with her radical spirit—came together as a panel in the annual meeting of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature at Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York, to deliberate on CPR. The panel discussions were engaging and elicited extraordinary response. This encouraged the publication of the proceedings as a special symposium in 2002 in the journal Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. The present book is a result of further working on these proceedings for more than a decade. (shrink)

The Philosopher Queen: Feminist Essays on War, Love, and Knowledge. By Chris Cuomo. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003. The Philosopher Queen is a powerful illustration of what Cherríe Moraga calls a "theory in the flesh." That is, theorizing from a place where "physical realities of our lives—our skin color, the land or concrete we grow up on, our sexual longings—all fuse to create a politic [and, I would add, an ethics, spirituality, and epistemology] born out of necessity" (...) (Moraga 21). Cuomo's theory in the flesh combines standard philosophical essays with personal narratives and invites us to do philosophy from this joyful and witty place. Readers are invited to reframe and reexamine war, science, gender, sexuality, race, ecology, knowledge, and politics in a voice that is fearless, funny, faithful, and feminist—one that disrupts common understandings of how philosophy ought to be done. Instead philosophy should help us to "negotiate a wild, wicked world, and to provide some understanding of being and existence. The best philosophy aims to promote good and to produce knowledge, and therefore enable flourishing" (xi). Accepted philosophical approaches alone are inadequate. Life's challenges resist formulaic solutions. Knowledge is not always produced through neat deductions: truths are partial, power divides, stomachs growl, hearts are broken, and emotions influence... (shrink)

Joseph Heath sometimes plays the role of a gadfly in climate and environmental ethics. He often defends conventional, economics-focused claims which rub many philosophers the wrong way—claims that are at the heart of issues raised in these pages, claims such as that discounting is justifiable, growth is good, or cost-benefit analysis is appropriate in liberal democracies. I think we can all agree that sophisticated defences of conventional positions play an important part in the ecosystem. For philosophers, a gadfly can challenge (...) entrenched conceptions. If we agree that these goals are worthwhile, then this book serves as a useful summary and synthesis of the ways Heath has ably defended conventional claims about climate policy. (shrink)

Guy Axtell's new book, as the title suggests, is an attempt to assess the limits of reasonable religious disagreement. In trying to delineate those limits Axtell thinks that it is useful to employ the notions of luck and risk in examining how reasonable a particular religious (or atheistic) stance is. A central concern of the book is with religious groups which exclude others in some way and which ascribe traits to those other groups that are very unlike the (...) traits the group ascribes to themselves. For example, a group might describe its own members as being saved but describe members of other similar groups as being lost. (shrink)

Même si ce livre ne compte pas plus d’une centaine de pages, l’analyse qu’il offre de Heidegger et de sa relation à l’environnement s’avère plutôt exhaustive. Si Casey Rentmeester le fait débuter par une brève histoire du développement de la philosophie environnementale, précisant comment cette discipline a largement affaire à l’éthique appliquée et l’éthique normative, il y explique bientôt comment des philosophes tels que Naess, Thomson et Toadvine emploient aujourd’hui des méthodes non-traditionnelles — ecofeminism, ecophenomenology, deep ecology — pour explorer (...) des aspects négligés par le courant philosophique qui y domine. Avant de s’appuyer sur l’œuvre heideggérienne pour répondre aux questions peu examinées par cette tradition de pensée, l’A. décrit brièvement la manière dont certains des représentants de celle-ci — Siedel, Zimmerman et Foltz notamment — se servent de celle-là pour mieux saisir la position de l’homme dans la nature. À l’en croire, son but est double : utiliser d’abord la critique phénoménologique de la métaphysique établie par Heidegger pour montrer comment, au sein de cette dernière, notre compréhension de l’être a mené à une destruction de l’environnement, puis penser avec Heidegger pour chercher à ce problème une réponse post-métaphysique qu’il s’agirait d’esquisser si tant est qu’il y en ait une. Or, tel est le cas pour Casey Rentmeester, qui se tourne en définitive vers le taoïsme pour lui emprunter son image d’un environnement durable. (shrink)

Compassion and Moral Guidance es el título de la tesis doctoral del profesor Steve Bein de la Universidad de Hawai, publicada en el 2013 por la Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy como su monografía No. 23. En este texto el autor nos pone frente a un término utilizado muy frecuentemente pero muchas veces am-biguo o que conduce a equívocos.

This book is co-written in a lively, engaging form by Karen Carr, from the discipline of religious studies and Philip Ivanhoe, whose background is in the disciplines of religious studies and Asian languages and philosophy. Unlike typical co-authorship, these two authors write separate pieces about Zhuangzi and Soren Kierkegaard and then together offer a combined vision. Refreshingly, the emphasis is on contrast of exemplars of two different and irreconcilable ways instead of comparison between similar thinkers. The two authors are (...) to be congratulated for this in-depth interchange both with each other and with these two iconoclastic thinkers. It is hoped that this innovative genre-a study of contrasts that partially crosses disciplines, maintains the integrity of each coauthor, and yet attempts a comprehensive vision-will provide inspiration for comparative studies in the future. (shrink)

(English translation from the text in Korean) -/- The assertion that both humanity and the external world share a fundamental unity has gained increasing recognition, particularly in light of the growing discourse surrounding quantum physics. This perspective draws parallels with conceptual frameworks found in Western idealism, Eastern Buddhism, and the philosophy of Zhuangzi. In examining the current state of scientific inquiry, one cannot overlook the profound impact of quantum mechanics on the field of physics, alongside the rising influence of quantum (...) technology in shaping our information-driven culture. These developments are ushering our contemporaries into an era of heightened engagement with an extended reality. -/- However, amidst this transformative landscape, a notable tension emerges. While we have made significant strides in understanding the world through the lens of classical mechanics, the central thesis positing the essential unity of ourselves and the world seems to encounter unease and perplexity. A conspicuous discord arises when we consider that our lived experiences of humans and objects occur solely within the confines of three dimensions, while we are confronted with the assertion that these three dimensions are considered 'abstract,' while eleven dimensions are held to be 'fundamental.' This disjunction between our experiential reality and its explanatory framework gives rise to a pressing question that beckons exploration. -/- In response to this challenge, various endeavors have been undertaken to bridge the perceptible gap. One such undertaking is exemplified in the work of A. Ney, titled "The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for Quantum Physics." Ney takes as her primary inquiry the profound question of how the macroscopic realm can be intricately constructed from the microscopic realm, a question that stands at the forefront of quantum physics. In her pursuit, Ney endeavors to illuminate her thesis, positing that both we and the objects that populate our reality are composed of wave functions. -/- This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Ney's work, encapsulating the content of its initial half. Subsequently, it will offer a critical analysis in the latter portion, engaging with the merits and potential limitations of her proposed metaphysical framework. (shrink)

Book Review K. Brad Wray: Resisting Scientific Realism. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2018, xii + 224 pp, £ 75.00 (Hardcover), ISBN: 9781108231633. By Ragnar van der Merwe. In The Journal for the General Philosophy of Science.

Overall, this book is indispensable for anyone wanting to have a richer understanding of how the Qur’an is read and interpreted within a feminist context. It is a wonderful synthesis of the work that has been done in the field thus far and provides tools necessary to seek out new avenues in understanding the Qur’an while still retaining a feminist spirit. Yet, in the end, this book does not disturb Muslim world order. It remains an overwhelming possibility for (...) Hidayatullah that interpretations which hierarchally differentiate between men and women may not be wrong. There is a comforting sense of resignation, or at least an affirmation of the ambivalence that Muslim mothers have transmitted to their daughters for centuries. We, feminist Muslims, are left with the same ambiguity with which we started the book. However, we now have a much deeper understanding of the nature of that ambiguity, and that perhaps is worth embracing in itself. (shrink)

In this fascinating book, Mehmet Karabela reveals the many roles assigned to Islam, Islamic history, the Ottoman Empire, Turks and Arabs by northern European Protestant intellectuals, mostly German Lutherans, from 1650 to 1800. The texts cover many topics that famously captivated European thinkers during a period which Karabela elects to call post-Reformation rather than Enlightenment. There are comparative studies of religion, philosophy, and literature. Karabela’s introduction provides a robust review of the historiography and offers context for patterns that emerge (...) from the texts. (shrink)

Libertarian Quandaries is a slim volume of tight reasoning that makes a resolute case for libertarianism. Libertarianism is “the social philosophy that identifies individual liberty as the most fundamental social value, and by extension treats moral cooperation as the only morally permissible form of social interaction.” More specifically, the book is a compendium of concise rebuttals to commonplace counterarguments advanced against libertarianism. It attempts to show that libertarianism withstands wide-ranging criticisms in principle, but also that it can be implemented (...) in practice. It does an admirable job in this regard. The book is not, however, aimed at lightweight lovers of liberty. The content—conveyed in carefully crafted phrases—makes non-trivial intellectual demands on the reader. (shrink)