John Dewey was unique among American philosophers in his insistence that the events, the social structure, the beliefs and attitudes of a period, its models of science and human history, all have some constitutive role in its philosophical theory. This belief is amply demonstrated in Dewey's own writings. Dewey and James H. Tufts' Ethics was first published in 1908 with a revised edition appearing in 1932. Dewey's part in the latter was wholly rewritten, and in effect constituted a new work, showing that Dewey did not believe ethical beliefs were eternal and unchanging. In...

This book presents the results of an experiment in interdisciplinary collaboration to clarify theories of morality and anthropology and philosophy, showing how each may be enriched by borrowing from the other. Pooling the resources and methods of their respective fields-anthropology and philosophy-May and Abraham Edel examine the wide range of moral differences in the world -to establish 'coordinates' for the more systematic mapping of particular moralities, to explore more explicitly the relations of morality to cultural patterns and social processes, and to see how philosophic issues of...

In this stunning act of synthesis, Abraham Edel captures the entire range of Aristotle's thought in a manner that will prove attractive and convincing to a contemporary audience. Many philosophers approach Aristotle with their own, rather than his, questions. Some cast him as a partisan of a contemporary school. Even the neutral approach of classical scholarship often takes for granted questions that reflect our modern ways of dissecting the world.

Aristotle and His Philosophy shows him at work in asking and answering questions. Abraham Edel fashions a sound comparative way...

There is an historical element throughout philosophy. As Edel notes, this is always in the context of problems, so emphasis will fall on the major objective of reflective analysis of ideas. The major objective of Edel's analysis in The Theory and Practice of Philosophy is the fundamental interrelatedness of problems of method, metaphysics, and value. Each part is an integral whole, complete in itself.

That philosophy has this central role in human practice indicates that it should be neither discarded nor deified. This is the explicit premise of the book. Students are likely...

In the current atmosphere of controversy about modes of interpreting literature, historical influences in science, and subtle ideologies in social theory, Abraham Edel confronts the institutionalized separation of the humanities and the sciences, the segregation of disciplines through structures that rest on entrenched dualisms, and the isolations reenforced by habits of the academy and its struggles over turf. Edel's "search for connections" - carried out not only theoretically but through a series of particular studies spanning major disciplines from philosophy and social theory to...

In Ethical Judgment, Abraham Edel makes clear the part played by biological and social scientific information in ethical judgment and moral action using psychological, anthropological, and economic materials as well as historical studies. Edel suggests that many controversies in ethical theory have emerged because different ethical theories made different scientific assumptions. In the almost forty years since his book was first published, life has become more complex and technological change has accelerated, bringing changes to our morality and ethical theory as well as our...

Initially prepared as part of the Foundations of the Unity of Science volumes under the auspices of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Science and the Structure of Ethics soon took on a life of its own. Well positioned in the naturalistic tradition of ethical theory extending from John Dewey at the start and Richard Rorty at the conclusion of the century, Abraham Edel's volume offers a remarkable synthesis of the ways hi which ethical statements can be examined, and the nature of ethical concerns.

Edel reveals a singular capacity to move beyond oracular...

May Edel's The Chiga of Uganda is in the grand tradition of Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, and Leslie Spier. Written at a time when older ways were menaced by contact with other cultures, Edel's effort was part of a descriptive urgency that aimed to capture the past before the past disappeared. And that past should be viewed from the perspective of the people themselves, by students going into the field to observe, question, and report. This book is an enlarged and amplified edition of The Chiga of Western Uganda published in 1957 by the Oxford University Press for the International African...