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What are systems? What is society? What happens to human beings in a hypermodern world? This book is an introduction to Niklas Luhmann's social system theory which explains specific functions like economy and mass media from a cybernetic perspective. Integrating various schools of thought including sociology, philosophy and biology Luhmann Explained results in an overall analysis of "world society". Special attention is given to the present-day relevance of Luhmann's theory with respect to globalization, electronic mass media, ethics, and new forms of protest.

Is the world around us truly as it appears or are we inert bodies in tanks, our brains subjected to electronic stimulation creating a make-believe world of hallucination? The Keanu Reeves cult sci-fi movie, The Matrix, vividly conveyed the excitement and the horror of a fake world made of nothing but perceptions, substituting for a real world of grim despair. Since The Matrix is probably the most overtly philosophical movie ever to have come out of Hollywood it has popularised issues on which philosophers have a lot to say. The Matrix and Philosophy is from the same team of cool, capable, young philosophers who created The Simpsons and Philosophy, which redefined the market for a work by serious philosophers. It has 20 new, thoughtful essays on philosophical problems raised by The Matrix, many of which focus on the issues "Can we be sure the world is really there, and if not, what should we do about it?" The book also explores other philosophical puzzles including ethical ones like Cypher's decision to choose a pleasurable fake world over a wretched real one.

"Edinger has greatly enriched my understanding of psychology through the avenue of alchemy. No other contribution has been as helpful as this for revealing, in a word, the anatomy of the psyche and how it applies to where one is in his or her process. This is a significant amplification and extension of Jung's work. Two hundred years from now, it will still be a useful handbook and an inspiring aid to those who care about individuation". -- Psychological Perspectives

The Moon in the Well is a collection of 65 tales from many cultures, followed by interpretive comments, suggested uses, and true-life examples of what can happen when a nourishing story is taken to heart. Erica Meade's musings and suggestions are intended to pique readers' interest in story and guide them in weaving wisdom tales into their everyday dialogues.

The adult-oriented science-fiction cartoon series Rick and Morty, shown on Cartoon Network as part of its late-night Adult Swim feature, is famous for its nihilistic anti-hero Rick Sanchez. Rick is a character who rejects God, religion, and meaning, but who embraces science and technology.This leads to a popular show that often presents a world view favorable to science and dismissive of spirituality. It is existentialism mashed up with absurdism with a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of dick jokes thrown in. Rick and Morty and Philosophy focuses on the philosophical underpinnings of the show.The authors explain and develop ideas that are mentioned or illustrated in various episodes, so that fans can get really solid evidence for what they know already: this show is awesome and deep. Rick has access to technology that allows him to jump between dimensions or realities. He brings his grandson, Morty, along with him on these adventures, often putting Morty in mortal danger. However, Rick’s attitude is that there are an infinite number of Mortys in the multiverse, so if his Morty dies, he can always replace his Morty with another Morty from a different dimension. One question that arises is, are these Mortys really identical to each other? And if one of them dies, can he really be replaced without loss?Another character in the show is Jerry, the husband of Rick’s daughter. Jerry is a complete and total loser with no self-respect, desperate to get any kind of respect from others. Why is it so important that he has self-respect? How does his lack of self-respect affect those around him? In one adventure, Jerry finds himself in a position where he can save one of the greatest civil rights leaders in the universe whose heart is failing. Jerry can save his life by donating his penis, which is the perfect organ to match the alien’s failing heart. Does Jerry have a moral obligation to do so? Recently, ethicists such as Peter Singer and Julian Savulescu have argued that people have a moral obligation to donate a kidney to people who need one. Why wouldn’t the same apply to Jerry’s penis? Is such a donation above and beyond a moral obligation, and consequently optional, or is it a basic moral obligation and therefore required, as noted ethicists like Singer and Savulescu suggest?This volume also includes chapters that examine the experience of watching Rick and Morty. One writer argues that many of the Rick and Morty episodes induce within viewers a state of “Socratic aporia,” or confusion. Viewers are forced to reflect on their own moral beliefs about the world when characters do something that seems good but results in horrendous consequences.

Judith Jarvis Thomson's Normativity is a study of normative thought. She brings out that normative thought is not restricted to moral thought. Normative judgments divide into two sub-kinds, the evaluative and the directive; but the sub-kinds are larger than is commonly appreciated. Evaluative judgments include the judgments that such and such is a good umbrella, that Alfred is a witty comedian, and that Bert answered Carol's question correctly, as well as the judgment that David is a good human being. Directive judgments include the judgment that a toaster should toast evenly, that Edward ought to get a haircut, and that Frances must move her rook, as well as the judgment that George ought to be kind to his little brother. Thomson describes how judgments of these two sub-kinds interconnect and what makes them true when they are true. Given the extensiveness of the two sub-kinds of normative judgment, our everyday thinking is rich in normativity, and moreover, there is no gap between normative and factual thought. The widespread suspicion of the normative is therefore in large measure due to nothing deeper than an excessively narrow conception of what counts as a normative judgment.

From the early years, when he morphed from celebrated poet to provocative singer/songwriter, to his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Leonard Cohen has endured as one of the most enigmatic and profound figures in all of popular music. With his uniquely compelling voice and unparalleled depth of artistic vision, the aesthetic quality and intellectual merit of Cohen's work are above dispute; here, for the first time, a team of philosophers takes an in-depth look at its real significance. Want to know what Cohen and Kierkegaard have in common? Or whether Cohen rivals the great philosophical pessimist Schopenhauer? Then this book is for you. It provides the first thorough analysis of Cohen from various (philosophical) positions. It is intended not only for Cohen fans but also undergraduates in philosophy and other areas. It explores important neglected aspects of Cohen's work without attempting to reduce them to academic tropes, yet nonetheless it is also useful to academics -- or anyone -- beguiled by the enigma that is Leonard Cohen.

C.G. Jung's ideas continue to be of interest to many readers. Murray Stein, a longtime Jungian therapist and author, provides readers with an accessible introduction to the essential Jungian ideas. A major challenge to anyone who is trying to understand Jung's thought is the piecemeal way in which Jung communicated his ideas over his 60-year career - the result was 18 volumes of dense, often repetitious, prose. Stein provides a unified, comprehensive summary of Jung's vision of psychological and spiritual life. Written in a user-friendly style with lively anecdotes and helpful examples that illustrate some of Jung's abstract ideas. This text covers: the collective unconscious; human consciousness and the structure of the ego; synchronicity; the complexes; shadow; psychic energy; self; persona; individuation; and anima/animus.

What is the number one? How can we be sure that 2+2=4? These apparently ssimple questions have perplexed philosophers for thousands of years, but discussion of them was transformed by the German philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925).Frege (pronounced Fray-guh)believed that arithmetic and all mathematics are derived from logic, and to prove this he developed a completely new approach to logic and numbers. Joan Weiner presents a very clear outline of Frege's life and ideas, showing how his thinking evolved through successive books and articles.

Martin Heidegger’s (1889-1976) influence has long been felt not just in philosophy, but also in such fields as art, architecture, and literary studies. Yet his difficult terminology has often scared away interested readers lacking an academic background in philosophy. In this new entry in the Ideas Explained series, author Graham Harman shows that Heidegger is actually one of the simplest and clearest of thinkers. His writings and analyses boil down to a single powerful idea: being is not presence. In any human relation with the world, our thinking and even our acting do not fully exhaust the world. Something more always withdraws from our grasp. As Harman shows, Heidegger understood that human beings are not lucid scientific observers staring at the world and describing it, but instead are thrown into a world where light is always mixed with shadow. The book concludes with a comprehensible discussion of the philosopher’s notoriously opaque concept of the fourfold.

Blade Runner 2049 is a 2017 sequel to the 1982 movie Blade Runner, about a world in which some human-looking replicants have become dangerous, so that other human-looking replicants, as well as humans, have the job of hunting down the dangerous models and “retiring” (destroying) them. Both films have been widely hailed as among the greatest science-fiction movies of all time, and Ridley Scott, director of the original Blade Runner, has announced that there will be a third Blade Runner movie.Blade Runner 2049 and Philosophy is a collection of entertaining articles on both Blade Runner movies (and on the spin-off short films and Blade Runner novels) by twenty philosophers representing diverse backgrounds and philosophical perspectives. Among the issues addressed in the book:What does Blade Runner 2049 tell us about the interactions of state power and corporate power?Can machines ever become truly conscious, or will they always lack some essential human qualities?The most popular theory of personhood says that a person is defined by their memories, so what happens when memories can be manufactured and inserted at will?We already interact with non-human decision-makers via the Internet. When embodied AI becomes reality, how can we know what is human and what is simulation? Does it matter?Do AI-endowed human-looking replicants have civil and political rights, or can they be destroyed whenever “real” humans decide they are inconvenient?The blade runner Deckard (Harrison Ford) appears in both movies, and is generally assumed to be human, but some claim he may be a replicant. What’s the evidence on both sides?Is Niander Wallace (the-mad-scientist-cum-evil-corporate-CEO in Blade Runner 2049) himself a replicant? What motivates him?What are the impacts of decision-making AI entities on the world of business?Both Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 have been praised for their hauntingly beautiful depictions of a bleak future, but the two futures are very different (and the 2019 future imagined in the original Blade Runner is considerably different from the actual world of 2019). How have our expectations and visions of the future changed between the two movies?The “dream maker” character Ana Stelline in Blade Runner 2049 has a small but pivotal role. What are the implications of a person whose dedicated mission and task is to invent and install false memories?What are the social and psychological implications of human-AI sexual relations?

In order to be truly free, must you act arbitrarily? If an event did not happen, could it have happened? Since there is evil, and God could have made the world without evil, did God fail to pick the best course? Grappling with such simple--yet still intriguing--puzzles, Leibniz was able to present attractively his new theories of the real and the phenomenal, freewill and determinism, and the relation between minds and bodies. Theodicy was Leibniz's only book-length work to be published in his lifetime, and for many years the work by which he was known to the world. Fully at home with the latest scienctific advances, Leibniz ultimately rejected the new atomistic philosophies of Descartes, Gassendi, and Hobbes, and drew upon the old cosmology of Aristotelian scholasticism. There could be no conflict, he argued between faith and reason, freedom and necessity, natural and divine law. Ingeniously defending his postulate of pre-established harmony, Leibniz made important advances in the precise analysis of concepts.

Led Zeppelin, who bestrode the world of rock like a colossus, have continually grown in popularity and influence since their official winding up in 1980. They exasperated critics and eluded classification, synthesizing blues, rock, folk, rockabilly, funk, classical, country, Indian, and Arabic techniques. They performed the alchemical trick of transmuting base led into gold--and platinum--and diamond. They did what they would, finding wisdom through personal excess and artistic self-discipline. "Not a coda to Zeppelin's legacy, but a blast of metaphysical graffiti as relevant today as the first time we heard the opening chords of 'Stairway to Heaven'. From Kant to 'Kashmir', from Freud to 'Fool in the Rain', Calef and company explore Zeppelin's music in an introspective, suggestive manner worthy of both a blistering Page solo and a bawdy Bonham stomp." --BRANDON W. FORBES, co-editor of Radiohead and Philosophy "Led Zeppelin's albums, personalities, live performances, art work, myths, influences, and more, all come under the microscope. Compelling insights and observations add more depth to a subject that continues to thrill and inspire.Each chapter is driven by an unquenchable thirst for Zeppelin knowledge and pulls the reader deeper into the world of Led Zeppelin ..." --DAVE LEWIS, editor, Tight But Loose

"Ptolemy's Universe" is a modern examination of the cosmological and philosophical dimensions of Ptolemy's thought as presented in his astronomical works. Claudius Ptolemy (second century AD) ranks as one of the most important figures in the history of science, especially renowned for his contribution to mathematical astronomy. Within astronomical works such as "The Mathematical Syntaxis", Ptolemy presented some of his views on natural philosophy, epistemology and ethics, and explained their pertinence to his astronomy. While much has been written about Ptolemy's mathematical work, few attempts have been made to understand his philosophical and cosmological ideas. In this book, Dr Taub shows how Ptolemy's conception of the celestial bodies as divine beings shaped his philosophical thinking, and how this in turn influenced his study of the heavens. Dr Taub's examination of the place of Ptolemy's ideas within the broader context of Greek philosophy, mathematics and culture, provides insights into the nature of Greek scientific thought.

"A history of Chinese philosophy in the so-called Axial Period (the period of classical Greek and Indian philosophy), during which time China evolved the characteristic ways of thought that sustained both its empire and its culture for over 2000 years. It is comprehensive, lucid, almost simple in its presentation, yet backed up with incomparable authority amid a well-honed discretion that unerringly picks out the core of any theme. Garlanded with tributes even before publication, it has redrawn the map of its subject and will be the one essential guide for any future exploration. For anyone interested in the affinities between ancient Chinese and modern Western philosophy, there is no better introduction."—Contemporary Review

This is the only complete and up-to-date collection of Hume's writings on religion, in an accessible classroom edition. Includes The Natural History of Religion, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Of the Immortality of the Soul, Of Suicide, Of Superstition and Enthusiasm, A Note on the Profession of Priest, and two revealing letters. "Overall, this book performs two special services. First, it makes readily available the full range of Hume's writings on religion. Second, its thorough notes explain references students are likely to find obscure and points they are likely to find puzzling." —Ethics

Adventure Time and Philosophy is a monster-beating, wild ride of philosophical mayhem. One of the deepest and most thoughtful television shows ever to assault human brain waves, Adventure Time shows us what the world could be like, challenging everything we know about life, meaning, heroism, and even burritos, and it's time to give the show some serious thought. This book screws open our cranial lids, mucks about in the mess that is our heads, and attempts to come to some answers about the nature of reality. Adventure Time and Philosophy is a chance to put down your broadsword, put your exhausted monster-slaying feet up, and try to figure out why you spend your time rescuing people in distress and fighting for justice. Who better than Finn and Jake to have as companions when taking on Plato, Nietzsche, and Baudrillard or encountering the Slime Princess, the Ice King, and Marceline the Vampire Queen? Filled with chapters written by a colorful cast of characters, Adventure Time and Philosophy enlightens us about the profound and life-affirming spiritual subtext and dark comedic elements of an awesomely fantastic show.

Davidson, professor emeritus at U.C. Berkeley, is admired for his provocative and influential theories of mind and language.

A light-hearted introduction to philosophy through the antics of the Simpsons, television's animated family. These essays on the silly, absurd, hyper-ironic and strangely philosophical world that is Springfield - the town without a state - explore philosophy and the major philosophers of Western thought: is Bart a pragmatist? Why is Mr Burn's quest for happiness continually frustrated? The contributors discuss the thought of key philosophers including Aristotle, Marx, Camus, Sartre, Heidegger and Kant, and tackle issues like irony and the meaning of life, American anti-intellectualism, and existential rebellion. The volume also includes an episode guide and a chronology of philosophers which gives the names and dates of the major thinkers in the history of philosophy, accompanied by a representative quote from each.

This is a new classroom edition of Bacon's great work of 1620, a founding document of empiricism and scientific method. It features an introduction and notes to help the reader.

The Cours de linguistique generale, reconstructed from students' notes after Saussure's death in 1913, founded modern linguistic theory by breaking the study of language free from a merely historical and comparativist approach. Saussure's new method, now known as Structuralism, has since been applied to such diverse areas as art, architecture, folklore, literary criticism, and philosophy.

This collection of essays in support of the theory of evolutionary epistemology includes articles by Karl Popper, Peter Munz and Gerhard Vollmer. This volume attempts to show how an evolutionary and non-justificational approach affects the sociology of knowledge.

"The first two lectures place the alternative I defend -- a kind of pragmatic realism -- in a historical and metaphysical context. Part of that context is provided by Husserl's remark that the history of modern philosophy begins with Galileo -- that is, modern philosophy has been hypnotized by the idea that scientific facts are all the facts there are. Another part is provided by the analysis of a very simple example of what I call 'contextual relativity'. The position I defend holds that truth depends on conceptual scheme and it is nonetheless 'real truth'. "In my third lecture I turn to the Kantian antecedents of this view, explaining what I think should be retained of the Kantian idea of autonomy as the central theme of morality, and extracting from Kant's work a 'moral image of the world' that connects the ideals of equality and intellectual liberty. In this lecture I defend the idea that moral images are an indispensible part of our moral and cultural heritage. "In the final lecture I defend the idea of moral objectivity.I compare our epistemological positions in ethics, history, analysis of human character, and science, and I argue that in no area can we hope for a 'foundation' which is more ultimate than the beliefs that actually, at a given time, function as foundational in the area, the beliefs concerning which one has to say 'this is where my spade is turned'. In ethics such beliefs are represented in moral images of the world".

This interdisciplinary approach to rites of passage comprises 31 essays by outstanding contributors, including Marie-Louise yon Franz, Robert Bly, James Hall, Helen Luke, Victor Turner, and Marion Woodman. "A watershed book ...an interdisciplinary array of essays highlights both the need for, and importance of, rights of passage to mark important transitions in our lives". -- Thresholds