Latin America - its people, its politics, its economy - has burst upon the world scene with powerful images that have captured the curiosity of many English-speaking North Americans. The strategic importance of this vast region to the stability of the Wes

In an age of terrorism, religious skirmishing, global revolution and counterrevolution, political assassinations, moral conflict, and unceasing turmoil, there are many ideas and concepts that remain in desperate need of clarificationnot the least of these are fanaticism and hypocrisy.
Newman's fascinating investigation sheds much-needed light on these concepts.

A distinguished group of scholars met at the State University of New York at Buffalo to share their thoughts on the nature of humans as rational animals. The result is this compelling collection of essays and commentaries titled Naturalism and Rationality.
We are affected by all sorts of stimuli that influence our beliefs and actions. How does our understanding of what it means to be rational affect our interpretation of the world around us? What problems arise as a result of our attempts to analyze rationality within the scope of naturalism?
These essays offer fascinating discussion...

Offers a critical examination of Alvin Plantinga's and Richard Swinburne's contemporary attempt to defend traditional theism within the context of analytic philosophy.

Periodically, someone must remind philosophers of just how far removed they are from the all-too-real and vital human concerns that affect people's lives. Someone has to point the way to a philosophy that returns to these concerns with both depth and realism. James Gouinlock has deftly accomplished both tasks in Rediscovering the Moral Life. With trenchant reference to such contemporary philosophical luminaries as Alasdair MacIntyre, John Rawls, Jurgen Haberman, Michael Walzer, and Richard Rorty (among others), Gouinlock demonstrates that the abstractions produced by these writers fail to...

"The meaning of life" . . we question it, ponder it, dispute and fret about it, but at some point each of us finds the need to address this fundamental issue of human existence. Some believe that there is a purpose inherent in our nature as human beings and in the vast universe of which we are but a small part. Others hold that the values we strive for and the virtues we seek are revealed to us by a divine creator of the cosmos in whose plan we figure as integral components. Still others say that our lives have no intrinsic meaning beyond that which we give them.
With such competing...

Any intelligent debate on the ethical treatment of animals hinges on understanding their mental processes. The idea that consciousness in animals is beyond comprehension is usually traced to the 17th-century philosopher Ren? Descartes whose concept of animals as beast machines lacking consciousness influenced arguments for more than 200 years. But in reviewing Descartes' theory of mind, Daisie and Michael Radner demonstrate in Animal Consciousness that he did not hold the view so frequently attributed to him. In fact, they contend that Descartes distinguished two types of consciousness, which...