Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers – serie

This four volume set is a collection of some of the most significant scholarship published on the philosophy of Socrates in the last half century. The contributors include many of the most prominent scholars in this field. As the growth in Socratic studies in the past three decades is due in large part to the influential work of Gregory Vlastos, articles by him figure prominently in the collection, and works by other authors are generally related to his work (as sources of it, responses to it, or further developments of it).The volumes deal with different areas of Socratic thought. The first volume begins with the question whether and to what degree we can discern a distinctive philosophy of Socrates in the ancient sources. The second volume deals with the trial of Socrates and the philosophical issues that arise from it. The third volume considers the philosophical methodology of Socrates and the fourth his moral philosophy.This collection shares some material with earlier collections on the philosophy of Socrates, but it is more extensive and up-to-date. Unlike other collections, which may offer the reader only a single article on a given topic, this collection offers a conversation in-depth. The reader can thus get a sense of the dimensions of the scholarly debate on these central issues in the philosophy of Socrates. No collection can be complete, but this aims at a representative portrait of Socratic studies in the last fifty years.

This set offers the reader a way into the critical writings on Russell's work on Logic, Mathematics, Language, Knowledge, the World, History of Philosophy, Ethics, Education, Religion and Politics, and on his life and influence.

Wittgenstein scholarship has continued to grow at a pace few could have anticipated - a testament both to the fertility of his thought and to the thriving state of contemporary philosophy.In response to this ever-growing interest in the field, we are delighted to announce the publication of a second series of critical assessments on Wittgenstein, emphasising both the breadth and depth of contemporary Wittgenstein research.As well as papers on the nature and method of Wittgenstein's philosophy, this second collection also relates to a broader range of topics, including psychology, politics, art, music and culture.

Born in Austria, Karl Popper (1902-1994) was one of the dominant philosophical thinkers of the 20th century. A ground-breaking thinker, he saw the essence of true science as being the readiness to submit theories to severe testing and to reject them when refuted by test. His first major book in 1935, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, marked him as a major analyst of science and was to have an enormous influence on the way people, including major scientists, came to think about the field.This collection is a timely assessment of the reactions to and abiding influence of Popper's work and the controversy it caused across many academic and political fields. The set includes early responses to Popper's work from sources difficult to obtain, and also two early reviews (by Carnap and Grelling) in translations specially prepared for this set. It is organised thematically and includes a substantial new introduction by the editor.

Benedict de Spinoza [1632-1677] is among the most fascinating and the most controversial of Western philosophers. These volumes provide a comprehensive selection of high quality critical discussions of his philosophy published in, or translated into English since 1970.The collection is designed to allow current debates on key themes to be followed through in depth. At the same time, the selection and organisation of the articles give readers an appreciation of the diversity of philosophical approach and interpretation that characterises recent Spinoza scholarship.

Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995) was one of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century. His work has influenced a wide range of intellectuals, from French thinkers such as Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray and Jean-Luc Marion, to American philosophers Stanley Cavell and Hillary Putnam.This set will be a useful resource for scholars working in the fields of literary theory, philosophy, Jewish studies, religion, political science and rhetoric.Titles also available in this series include, Karl Popper (November 2003, 4 Volumes, £475), and the forthcoming titles Edmund Husserl (2005, c.4 Volumes, c. £475) and Gottlob Frege (2005, c.4 Volumes, c. £475).

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) has been hailed by many as the greatest French thinker of the twentieth century. As one of the founding members of the existentialist movement in the 1940s, he played a key role in introducing the work of Husserl and Heidegger into French thought and collaborated with Jean-Paul Sartre in the founding of Les Temps Modernes. His later work laid the foundation for the development of French thought in the direction of post-structuralism and post-modernism. Merleau-Ponty: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers gathers together the best critical writing on Merleau-Ponty’s work from the last half century. The collection includes early reviews of his work and the reactions of his contemporaries both during and after his life. Also covered are examinations of his relationship with Husserl, Sartre and the phenomenological tradition, investigations of key themes from his work on ontology, expression and politics, and the ongoing application of his thinking to such contemporary areas of interest as feminist theory, psychology and child development, environmental philosophy and cognitive science.

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) remains one of the contemporary world’s most influential thinkers. He has been a major figure in philosophy ever since the publication of his first important paper, ‘Mind-Body Identity, Privacy, and Categories’ in 1965, but it was the release of his seminal Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) that caused the literature on his work to expand exponentially, a process which has accelerated since his death in 2007; scores of new articles and books about Rorty appear every year, and even his biography has proved to be an academic bestseller. Rorty’s enduring appeal has a number of sources. One is the scope and urgency of his views, for he was never shy about presenting his call for the abandonment of objective truth against the grand backdrop of the cultural progress of the West. Another is that his views were highly controversial, and yet could not be easily dismissed, since Rorty was able to claim with some plausibility that he was simply drawing out the consequences of positions developed by his more conventionally respectable peers. And another is that Rorty applied his views to a wide range of topical concerns outside of academic philosophy. For these and many other reasons, philosophers to this day line up to refute him, students read Rorty before the philosophers he discusses, and non-philosophy academics produce a continuous stream of articles applying his views to their own interests.The daunting quantity (and variable quality) of literature available on Rorty makes it difficult to discriminate the useful from the tendentious, superficial, and otiose. That is why this new title in the highly regarded Routledge series, Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, is so urgently needed. Edited by James Tartaglia, the author of Rorty and the Mirror of Nature (Routledge, 2007), one of the most popular and straightforward books available on Rorty, this new Routledge Major Work is a four-volume collection of the best scholarship from the 1960s to the present day; the collected materials have been carefully selected from a wide range of academic journals, edited collections, and research monographs, many of which are hard to obtain in their original source.The first of the four volumes (‘Mind, Language, and Truth’) covers Rorty’s eliminative materialism in the philosophy of mind, his Davidsonian rejection of conceptual schemes in the philosophy of language, and his rejection of objective truth. Volume II (‘Metaphilosophy and Pragmatism’), meanwhile, assembles the best assessments of his pessimistic metaphilosophy, and his distinctive conception of pragmatism. The third volume (‘Philosophers’) brings together the key scholarly work on Rorty’s highly original—but endlessly disputed—interpretations of other philosophers, while the final volume in the collection (Volume IV: ‘Themes’) explores Rorty’s views as applied to a diverse range of topics, from feminism to environmentalism and bioethics.The tightly focused organization of this collection will allow scholars quickly and easily to access both established and up-to-date assessments of Rorty’s central positions, and will also make for irresistible browsing. With comprehensive introductions to each volume, providing essential background information and relating the various articles to each other, Richard Rorty is destined to be an indispensable resource for research and study.

SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY PRICE!(Valid until 3 months after publication)Daniel Dennett has been one of the central voices in the philosophy of mind for at least the past forty years. Unlike most philosophers of his generation, Dennett’s work has resonated far and wide. It has powerfully influenced the development of cognitive science, robotics, developmental psychology, and artificial intelligence. Indeed, his work has led to many new lines of inquiry. For example, he has developed a theory of consciousness which provides an approach to naturalizing mind which circumvents many of the most significant philosophical arguments against the possibility of a scientific explanation of consciousness.The daunting quantity (and variable quality) of literature available on Dennett makes it difficult to discriminate the useful from the tendentious, superficial, and otiose. Moreover, because no comparable philosopher has had a profound impact across such a wide range of disciplines and on intellectual culture in general, responses to Dennett’s philosophy are dispersed across a broad range of scientific, philosophical, and cultural domains. That is why this new title in the highly regarded Routledge series, Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, is so urgently needed. Edited by John Symons, this new Routledge Major Work is a four-volume collection of the best scholarship on Dennett; the collected materials have been carefully selected from a wide range of academic journals, edited collections, research monographs, and other sources.The tightly focused organization of this collection allows users quickly and easily to access both established and cutting-edge assessments of Dennett’s work. The set is also made for irresistible browsing. With comprehensive introductions to each volume, providing essential background information and relating the various works to each other, Daniel Dennett is destined to be an indispensable resource for research and study.

Elizabeth Anscombe (1919–2001) was one of the most important philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century, making major contributions in philosophy of mind, ethics, and metaphysics. She is particularly renowned for her work on intention and action. A pupil and friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Anscombe showed a deep understanding of his aims and methods, while being a bold and original thinker in her own right.Anscombe published two monographs and numerous articles in her lifetime, and left a considerable Nachlass. The monograph Intention (1957) has been hugely influential and has generated much discussion, as have such articles as ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ and ‘The First Person’. (Indeed, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ has been credited with inspiring that renewal of interest in virtues and character which came to be embodied in a whole school of thought, often called ‘Virtue Theory’.) Profound, often difficult, sometimes provocative, her work is probably unique in modern philosophy for its combination of breadth and depth.Now, to allow researchers and advanced students to make better sense of Anscombe, her major works, and the developments it has encouraged, Routledge announces this new four-volume collection in its acclaimed Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers series. Henceforward, Anscombe scholars and students will be able easily and rapidly to locate the best and most influential critical scholarship, work that is otherwise often inaccessible or scattered throughout a variety of specialist journals and books. With material gathered into one easy-to-use set, researchers and students can now spend more of their time with the key journal articles, book chapters, and other pieces, rather than on time-consuming (and sometimes fruitless) archival searches.Fully indexed and with a comprehensive introduction newly written by the expert editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Elizabeth Anscombe is an essential reference work and is destined to be valued as a vital research resource.

Franz Brentano (1838–1917) was a leading philosopher and psychologist of the nineteenth century. Indeed, the impact of his scholarship was so great that he became synonymous with a school of thought and a new approach in scientific philosophy. The Brentano School stood against the Idealistic and post-Kantian German tradition and Brentano played a crucial role in the founding of Austrian philosophy. He had an enormous impact on the work of Husserl and Heidegger, as well as on Moore’s Ethics and Stout and Russell’s analysis of mind. In particular, situated between the phenomenology movement and the analytic tradition, the concept of intentionality was redefined by Brentano and has been—and remains—a key concept of twentieth- and twentieth-first century philosophy of mind. But Brentano not only reshaped philosophy of mind; he was also a remarkable and innovative thinker in several other fields of philosophy, and recent debate in metaethics, metaphysics, and the history of analytic philosophy shows a strong resurgence of interest in Brentano’s thought.Published to coincide with the centenary of Brentano’s death, this four-volume collection, a new title from Routledge Major Works, provides an essential intellectual tool for the exegetical evaluation of all aspects of Brentano’s work. Bringing together early reviews and reactions from his contemporaries—many of which have never before been translated into English—as well as the best critical assessments of Brentano’s work, this ‘mini library’ provides Brentano scholars, historians of philosophy and psychology, and phenomenologists, with a rigorous historical appraisal of Brentano’s thought and influence. Brentano’s relationships with Husserl, Heidegger, and the phenomenological tradition are examined in depth, alongside investigations of key themes from his work on Aristotle, medieval and modern philosophy, philosophy of mind, logic, ontology, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of history.

Socrates is perhaps the most famous philosopher in the Western intellectual tradition. He raised fundamental questions, such as ‘what is justice?’ and ‘does virtue produce happiness?’. Although he wrote nothing himself, he is the source of a vast literature, beginning with Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle, and continuing to the present day.In the two decades since the first Routledge Critical Assessments collection on Socrates was prepared for publication (Socrates (1996) (978-0-415-10968-0)), scholarly work has blossomed anew, not least in response to Gregory Vlastos’s Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher and Charles Kahn’s Plato and the Socratic Dialogue. This new Routledge anthology, compiled by the editor of the first collection, takes full account of the many important developments that have taken place since the mid-1990s. Socrates II assembles in one easy-to-use resource the major works produced by established and rising scholars in this period on the topics covered in the original collection. It also gathers the very best material on additional themes, including: the possibility of Socratic Studies; Socratic irony; Socratic metaphysics; Socratic moral psychology; and Socrates on love.With a full index, together with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Socrates II is an indispensable work of reference. It will interest not only scholars in the History of Philosophy, but also those working in Law, Political Science, and the History of Greek Religion.