Kategoria BISAC: Philosophy >> Criticism

What is meaning in life? Does anything really matter? How can a life achieve lasting significance? How can we explain the human propensity to struggle for ideals? How is meaning related to contentment, happiness, joy? Is meaning something we discover, or do we create it? What is the nature of value, and what are its sources in human experience? Can there be a meaning in life without religious faith? What is the meaning of death? Is life worth living? What would enable us to have a love of life?

"Meaning in life," writes philosopher Irving Singer, "and the meaning in our own lives,...

This book provides the first comprehensive account of trauma as a critical concept in the study of modern visual media, from Freud to the present day, explaining how contemporary trauma studies emerged from research on Holocaust representation in which the audiovisual testimony of survivors was posed as an authentic alternative to popular television and film dramatizations. It argues that the media coverage of 9/11 and the subsequent 'war on terror, ' however, has revealed how the formation of communities of witness and commemoration around 'traumatic events' can perpetuate violence and...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has fascinated children and adults alike for generations. Why does Lewis Carroll introduce us to such oddities as blue caterpillars who smoke hookahs, cats whose grins remain after their heads have faded away, and a White Queen who lives backwards and remembers forwards? Is it all just nonsense? Was Carroll under the influence? This book probes the deeper underlying meaning in the Alice books, and reveals a world rich with...

This book puts forward a much-needed reappraisal of Immanuel Kant's conception of and response to skepticism, as set forth principally in the Critique of Pure Reason. It is widely recognized that Kant's theoretical philosophy aims to answer skepticism and reform metaphysics--Michael Forster makes the controversial argument that those aims are closely linked. He distinguishes among three types of skepticism: "veil of perception" skepticism, which concerns the external world; Humean skepticism, which concerns the existence of a priori concepts and synthetic a priori knowledge; and...

Sigmund Freud's interpretation of the Oedipus myth - that subconsciously, every man wants to kill his father in order to obtain his mother's undivided attention - is widely known. Arguing that the pervasiveness of Freud's ideas has unduly influenced scholars studying the works of Modernist writers, Bradley W. Buchanan re-examines the Oedipal narratives of authors such as D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce in order to explore their conflicted attitudes towards the humanism that underpins Freud's views.

In the alternatives to the Freudian version of...

Since the 1970s, critical realism has grown to address a range of subjects, including economics, philosophy, science, and religion. It has become a complex and mature philosophy.

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Enlightened Common Sense: The Philosophy of Critical Realism" looks back over this development in one concise and accessible volume. The late Roy Bhaskar was critical realism s philosophical originator and chief exponent. He draws on a lifetime s experience to give a definitive, systematic account of this increasingly influential, international and multidisciplinary approach.

Critical realism s key...

Since the 1970s, critical realism has grown to address a range of subjects, including economics, philosophy, science, and religion. It has become a complex and mature philosophy.

"

Enlightened Common Sense: The Philosophy of Critical Realism" looks back over this development in one concise and accessible volume. The late Roy Bhaskar was critical realism s philosophical originator and chief exponent. He draws on a lifetime s experience to give a definitive, systematic account of this increasingly influential, international and multidisciplinary approach.

Critical realism s key...