SUNY series in Philosophy – serie

Presents a synoptic, compact, and accessible exposition of this influential and interesting sector of twentieth-century American philosophy.This is a synoptic, compact, and accessible exposition for readers who want to inform themselves regarding this influential and interesting sector of twentieth-century American philosophy.

The authors examine implications of Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory of discourse for the understanding of theological language. Topics include self, desire, post-structuralism, the unconscious, the father's rule, dwelling (in Heidegger's sense), Anselm, ontological argument, alterity, utopia, signifiers/signifieds, God, reason, and text.

This book covers the first 500 years of the common era. These years witnessed the revivals of Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Pyrrhonism, Cynicism, and Pythagoreanism; but by far the most important movement was the revival of Platonism under Plotinus. Here, the historical context of Plotinus is provided including the currents of thought that preceded him and opened the path for him. The presuppositions of the Enneads are made explicit and the thought of Plotinus is reconstructed.The author reorients the expositions of Middle Platonism and neo-Pythagoreanism. He provides a full exposition of Hermeticism and the doctrines of the Chaldean Oracles. He also defends the notion that Philo of Alexandria nourished a Jewish philosophy, not an eclectic mixture.

This book covers the first 500 years of the common era. These years witnessed the revivals of Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Pyrrhonism, Cynicism, and Pythagoreanism; but by far the most important movement was the revival of Platonism under Plotinus. Here, the historical context of Plotinus is provided including the currents of thought that preceded him and opened the path for him. The presuppositions of the Enneads are made explicit and the thought of Plotinus is reconstructed.The author reorients the expositions of Middle Platonism and neo-Pythagoreanism. He provides a full exposition of Hermeticism and the doctrines of the Chaldean Oracles. He also defends the notion that Philo of Alexandria nourished a Jewish philosophy, not an eclectic mixture.

This book presents a sympathetic yet critical treatment of the major philosophical attempts to define a viable project for philosophy in the face of historical changes. McCarthy, then, proposes a comprehensive, critical, and methodological strategy of epistemic integration that fully respects the progressive and pluralistic character of contemporary science and common sense.The programs of Frege, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Sellers, Dewey, Quine, and Rorty are carefully presented and an assessment is made of their merits and limitations. This assessment results in a defense of Lonergan's integrative strategy - a nuanced philosophical strategy around which a gathering center could be built. McCarthy presents Lonergan's work as containing the firm outline and partial execution of a philosophical project continuous with philosophy's historic purposes and equal to the exigences of the present.The book examines a broad range of seminal topics and, after extended dialectical treatment of them, develops a coherent account of their interdependence. These topics include psychologism, intentionality, the limits of naturalism, semantical and epistemic realism, historical belonging, epistemic invariance, foundational analysis, the limitation of logic and of the linguistic turn, generalized empirical method, the interdependence of mind and language, the interplay of nature and history, and the critical appropriation of tradition.

The question is, what constitutes truth in religion? Represented here is the whole spectrum of phenomenology-transcendental, existential, hermeneutic, ethical, and deconstructive-presented by some of the most respected names in the philosophy of religion today: Louis Dupré, Merold Westphal, and Edward Farley. Here is also engagement with a wide variety of twentieth-century thinkers such as Husserl, Scheler, and Heidegger; Ricoeur, Gadamer, and Derrida; Freud, van der Leeuw, and Eliade; and Rosenzweig, Tillich, and Schillebeeks.This volume provides unique sources for anyone interested in the philosophical, theological, or scientific study of religion.

This book both introduces the philosophy of science through examination of the occult and examines the occult rigorously enough to raise central issues in the philosophy of science. Placed in the context of the occult, philosophy of science issues become immediately understandable and forcefully compelling.Divergent views on astrology, parapsychology, and quantum mechanics mysticism emphasize topics standard to the philosophy of science. Such issues as confirmation and selection for testing, causality and time, explanation and the nature of scientific laws, the status of theoretical entities, the problem of demarcation, theory and observation, and science and values are discussed.Significantly revised, this second edition presents an entirely new section of quantum mechanics and mysticism including instructions from N. David Mermin for constructing a device which dramatically illustrates the genuinely puzzling phenomena of quantum mechanics. A more complete and current review of research on astrology has been included in this new edition, and the section on the problem of demarcation has been broadened.

This is the first book to thoroughly explore Confucian and Neo-Confucian metaphysics and ethics, building upon the creativity and temporality of human existence and human nature as well as their extension into human culture. Fundamental essays deal cogently with the relationship between Chinese language and Chinese philosophy, offering general categories which shape the matrix of ideas woven in Chinese philosophy from its very beginnings. Along with more general characterizations, there are themes placing Confucian thinkers in touch with modern communication theories, perceptions of individuals, religious themes, and scientific worldviews. Conceptual and comparative essays probe the frontiers of Chinese philosophy in its contemporary Confucian revival.

This is the first book to thoroughly explore Confucian and Neo-Confucian metaphysics and ethics, building upon the creativity and temporality of human existence and human nature as well as their extension into human culture. Fundamental essays deal cogently with the relationship between Chinese language and Chinese philosophy, offering general categories which shape the matrix of ideas woven in Chinese philosophy from its very beginnings. Along with more general characterizations, there are themes placing Confucian thinkers in touch with modern communication theories, perceptions of individuals, religious themes, and scientific worldviews. Conceptual and comparative essays probe the frontiers of Chinese philosophy in its contemporary Confucian revival.

In this book Reale presents Plato and Aristotle.At the center of Reale's interpretation of Plato is the fulcrum of the supersensible, the metaphysical discovery that Plato presented as a result of the Second Voyage. This discovery of the supersensible is, in Reale's view, not only the fundamental phase of ancient thought, but it also constitutes a milestone on the path of western philosophy.Reale presents Plato in three different dimensions: the theoretic, the mystical-religious, and the political. Each of these components takes on meaning from the Second Voyage. In addition, Reale has shown that only in the light of the Unwritten Doctrines handed down through the indirect tradition, do these three components, and the Second Voyage itself, acquire their full meaning, and only in this way is a unitary conception of Plato's thought achieved.The interpretation of Aristotle that Reale proposes depends on his interpretation of Plato. Aristotle read without preconceptions is not the antithesis of Plato. Reale points out that Aristotle was unique among thinkers close to Plato, in being the one who developed, at least in part, his Second Voyage. The systematic-unitary interpretation of Aristotle which Reale has previously supported converges with the new systematic-unitary interpretation of Plato. Certain doctrinal positions which are usually reserved to treatments in monographs will be explored, because only in this way can the two distinctive traits of Aristotle's thought emerge: the way in which he tries to overcome and confirm the Socratic-Platonic positions, and the way in which he formally creates the system of philosophical knowledge.

Knights of Faith and Resignation brings out the richness of Kierkegaard's creative invention, the contemporary relevance of his contrasts between resignation and faith, and his probing conceptual analysis of aesthetic, moral, and religious psychology and life-perspectives. And in tracing Kierkegaard's analysis of objectivity, subjectivity, virtue ethics, passion, dilemmas, commitment, and self-reflection, Mooney brings out a striking convergence between Kierkegaard and analytic philosophy - the tradition of Socrates, Kant, and Wittgenstein, and its more contemporary practitioners, writers like Charles Taylor, Thomas Nagel, Stanley Cavell, Bernard Williams, and Harry Frankfurt.

This book questions the postmodern credo that the autonomy of reason and action is a delusion, concealing our entrapment in historical convention and masking a logocentric domination. The author shows how this dogma not only assails a false vision of self-determination, but also how it ignores the way in which a critique of rational autonomy can provide no epistemology or ethics, nor any critique of modernity, without embracing the very independence of thought and conduct that it spurns. Freedom and Modernity offers a positive alternative revealing how self-determination is the very substance of legitimacy for both knowledge and conduct.

This book is a systematic and comprehensive treatment of issues involved in philosophical historiography. It deals with such topics as the relation of philosophy to its history, the role of value judgments in historical accounts, the value of the history of philosophy for philosophy, the nature and role of texts and their interpretation in the history of philosophy, historiographical method, and the stages of development of philosophical progress. The book defends two main theses. The first is that the history of philosophy must be done philosophically, that is, it must include philosophical judgments. The second is that one way to bring a rapprochement between Anglo-American and Continental philosophy is through the study of the history of philosophy and its historiography. An extensive bibliography of pertinent materials and detailed indexes close the book.

In his magnum opus, Process and Reality, Alfred North Whitehead claims a special affinity to Oxford philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley. McHenry clarifies exactly how much of Whitehead's metaphysics is influenced by and accords with the main principles of Bradley's "absolute idealism." He argues that many of Whitehead's doctrines cannot be understood without an adequate understanding of Bradley, in terms of both affinities and contrasts. He evaluates the arguments between them and explores several important connections with William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, Bertrand Russell, and Charles Hartshorne.

Contributors to this volume include Robert Bellah, Raimundo Panikkar, Susan Griffin, Robert C. Solomon, Hubert L. Dreyfus and Stuart D. Dreyfus, Francisco J. Varela, Steven Rockefeller, Bruce Wilshire, Huston Smith, Joanne Ciulla, Michael Murphy, Tyrone Cashman, Naomi Scheman, Don Hanlon Johnson, Robert A. McDermott, Roger Walsh, and David Appelbaum.

Discussions of modernism and postmodernism in philosophy and the arts are usually based on a narrow reading of the Western tradition and are not conscious of the narrowness. The modern period, beginning with the European Renaissance, spawned many developments, not just the modernist one in terms of which the tradition has been read. From the standpoint of the highroad around modernism, both modernism and post-modernism look like nothing more than two late modern movements, perhaps too preoccupied with themselves and their historical place to engage a swiftly changing world containing more than the Western tradition. The Highroad Around Modernism develops and defends an explicitly non-modernist and non-postmodernist extension of modernity applicable to the problems of world-wide cultural interactions.

Discussions of modernism and postmodernism in philosophy and the arts are usually based on a narrow reading of the Western tradition and are not conscious of the narrowness. The modern period, beginning with the European Renaissance, spawned many developments, not just the modernist one in terms of which the tradition has been read. From the standpoint of the highroad around modernism, both modernism and post-modernism look like nothing more than two late modern movements, perhaps too preoccupied with themselves and their historical place to engage a swiftly changing world containing more than the Western tradition. The Highroad Around Modernism develops and defends an explicitly non-modernist and non-postmodernist extension of modernity applicable to the problems of world-wide cultural interactions.

Wisdo concludes that the fragility of religious belief is due to the unavoidable irony intrinsic to the religious life.

Neville returns eternity to the center of consideration by analyzing the obsessive culture that attempts to get along denying it; and he analyzes the nature of time's flow itself, the nature of divine eternity, and the subtle problems of personal immortality. He argues that time and eternity constitute one topic and that, therefore, time itself is beyond understanding, beyond personal grasp, and beyond civilized orientation without a proper comprehension of eternity.

Neville returns eternity to the center of consideration by analyzing the obsessive culture that attempts to get along denying it; and he analyzes the nature of time's flow itself, the nature of divine eternity, and the subtle problems of personal immortality. He argues that time and eternity constitute one topic and that, therefore, time itself is beyond understanding, beyond personal grasp, and beyond civilized orientation without a proper comprehension of eternity.

This volume explores facets of Nietzsche relatively untouched by the majority of the vast literature on him. Stambaugh concentrates on his ideas on art and creativity in general, regarding these realms of human endeavor as not limited to aesthetics in the narrower sense, but as constitutive of life itself. She also explores a much neglected side of Nietzsche's thought, a dimension that is poetic and mystical. Drawing mainly from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche's most enigmatic and profound work, Stambaugh interprets Nietzsche's ultimate affirmation of life out of his experience of eternity.

This book is a discussion of the nature and import of Richard Rorty's philosophy, particularly as it relates to his reevaluation of American pragmatism. Rorty's thinking is assessed within the context of both modern and postmodern intellectual trends, and his thought is contrasted with that of his principal contemporaries in America and Europe, including Donald Davidson, W. V. O. Quine, Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida.

This book is a discussion of the nature and import of Richard Rorty's philosophy, particularly as it relates to his reevaluation of American pragmatism. Rorty's thinking is assessed within the context of both modern and postmodern intellectual trends, and his thought is contrasted with that of his principal contemporaries in America and Europe, including Donald Davidson, W. V. O. Quine, Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida.

Scientific nihilism is the widespread and ascendant view that the prospects for genuine understanding in scientific knowledge are distinctly negative. This view is especially characteristic of philosophy of science, and is reflected in a number of professional and popular doctrines. In the background is the growing perception that physical science is presently encountering the inherent limits of scientific understanding.This book shows that the breakoff of narrative causal explanation in physics, although remarkable, is no basis for the negative view of scientific knowledge. It demonstrates that radiation and field phenomena, which include a wide array of enigmatic facts, are amenable to explanation even in their most puzzling details.Athearn responds fully to the assumption that narrative causal explanation in physics has suffered a permanent demise. Rejecting the dogma of a clean bifurcation of philosophy and natural science, he proposes a constructive rehabilitation of natural philosophy.

The definitive exploration of how medieval and early modern thinkers answered philosophy's most fundamental question: what makes an individual truly individual?What makes an individual this particular being rather than another? This deceptively simple question—known as the problem of individuation—stood at the heart of medieval metaphysics and shaped the trajectory of Western philosophy.Individuation in Scholasticism, edited by Jorge J. E. Gracia, offers the most comprehensive exploration available of this enduring philosophical problem. Bringing together sixteen distinguished scholars, this volume traces the evolution of theories of individuation across Latin, Islamic, and Jewish traditions, illuminating a rich intellectual dialogue that spans five centuries.From Avicenna and Averroes to Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, and Suárez, the contributors examine how major thinkers and schools confronted questions of identity, unity, and difference. Each chapter provides rigorous analysis grounded in historical context, revealing both the diversity of scholastic approaches and their profound influence on early modern philosophy, including Leibniz.Bridging traditions, periods, and methodologies, this volume fills a critical gap in the study of metaphysics and medieval thought. It is an indispensable resource for scholars and students seeking to understand how the concept of individuality was forged, contested, and transmitted across generations.

The definitive exploration of how medieval and early modern thinkers answered philosophy's most fundamental question: what makes an individual truly individual?What makes an individual this particular being rather than another? This deceptively simple question—known as the problem of individuation—stood at the heart of medieval metaphysics and shaped the trajectory of Western philosophy.Individuation in Scholasticism, edited by Jorge J. E. Gracia, offers the most comprehensive exploration available of this enduring philosophical problem. Bringing together sixteen distinguished scholars, this volume traces the evolution of theories of individuation across Latin, Islamic, and Jewish traditions, illuminating a rich intellectual dialogue that spans five centuries.From Avicenna and Averroes to Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, and Suárez, the contributors examine how major thinkers and schools confronted questions of identity, unity, and difference. Each chapter provides rigorous analysis grounded in historical context, revealing both the diversity of scholastic approaches and their profound influence on early modern philosophy, including Leibniz.Bridging traditions, periods, and methodologies, this volume fills a critical gap in the study of metaphysics and medieval thought. It is an indispensable resource for scholars and students seeking to understand how the concept of individuality was forged, contested, and transmitted across generations.

In an era when philosophy often fragments into competing schools and fashionable skepticism, Philosophy without Foundations returns to one of its most challenging figures to recover a powerful, unifying vision. Through a series of tightly argued and strikingly original essays, William Maker reexamines Hegel not as an abstract metaphysician of the past, but as a rigorously critical thinker whose insights remain vital for confronting the dilemmas of modernity.Rejecting conventional interpretations, Philosophy without Foundations presents Hegel as a non-foundational and non-metaphysical philosopher, one whose dialectical method opens new possibilities for understanding reason, knowledge, and philosophical method itself. From the problem of beginning philosophy without presuppositions to the role of systematic science, the discussion unfolds with clarity, precision, and intellectual force.The second part extends this reappraisal into contemporary debates, offering provocative engagements with hermeneutics, Marxism, postmodernism, and transcendental argumentation. Along the way, Maker challenges prevailing assumptions and invites readers to reconsider the place of philosophy in a fractured intellectual landscape.Written for the thoughtful general reader as well as the seasoned philosopher, Philosophy without Foundations does not demand agreement, it demands reflection. As it unsettles familiar conclusions and reveals overlooked implications, it exemplifies philosophy at its most alive: critical, demanding, and deeply relevant.