Kategoria BISAC: Philosophy >> Movements - Rationalism

Alison Assiter argues that the notion of the person that lies at the heart of the liberal tradition is derived from a Kantian and Cartesian metaphysic. This metaphysic, according to her, is flawed and it permeates a number of aspects of the tradition. Significantly it excludes certain individuals, those who are labelled 'mad' or 'evil'. Instead she offers an alternative metaphysical image of the person that is derived largely from the work of Kierkegaard.

Assiter argues that there is a strand of Kierkegaard's writing that offers a metaphysical picture that recognises the dependence...

Calling for a Copernican reorientation of the very notion "Cartesianism," the book's series of close, creatively critical readings of Descartes' signature images brings the dramatic...

One of the world's most important political philosophers, Jon Elster is a leading thinker on reason and rationality and their roles in politics and public life. In this short book, he crystallizes and advances his work, bridging the gap between philosophers who use the idea of reason to assess human behavior from a normative point of view and social scientists who use the idea of rationality to explain behavior. In place of these approaches, Elster proposes a unified conceptual framework for the study of behavior.

Drawing on classical moralists as well as modern scholarship,...

Plato's Republic is arguably the most famous and influential work of philosophy ever written. It is certainly among the most widely read and studied, a staple of undergraduate courses that continues to inspire and inform contemporary debates in political philosophy. As such, it is a hugely important and exciting, yet challenging, piece of philosophical writing.
In Plato's 'Republic': A Reader's Guide, Luke Purshouse offers a clear and thorough account of this key philosophical work. The book sets Plato's work in context, introduces the major themes...

Alienation After Derrida rearticulates the Hegelian-Marxist theory of alienation in the light of Derrida's deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence. Simon Skempton aims to demonstrate in what way Derridian deconstruction can itself be said to be a critique of alienation. In so doing, he argues that the acceptance of Derrida's deconstructive concepts does not necessarily entail the acceptance of his interpretations of Hegel and Marx. In this way the book proposes radical reinterpretations, not only of Hegel and Marx, but of Derridian deconstruction itself.

The critique of the...

While many studies have chronicled the Romantic legacy of artistic genius, this book uncovers the roots of the concept of genius in Kant's third Critique, alongside the development of his understanding of nature. Paul Bruno addresses a genuine gap in the existing scholarship by exploring the origins of Kant's thought on aesthetic judgment and particularly the artist.

The development of the word 'genius' and its intimate association with the artist played itself out in a rich cultural context, a context that is inescapably significant in Western thought. Bruno shows how in...

Hobbes and the Making of Modern Political Thought considers what it is that makes the study of Hobbes so compelling. Gordon Hull reads Hobbes as the first 'modern' political philosopher. In Hobbes we find the combination of an anomalous and anachronistic view of geometry and a radical, almost post-modern understanding of language. After situation Hobbes against the late scholastic and Machiavellian traditions against which he wrote, the book studies Hobbes's neglected writings on mathematics and language. That analysis then motivates a rereading of his famous pronouncements about...

In Reality and Its Appearance, Nicholas Rescher aims to address the conceptual and analytical question: how does the concept of reality function and how should we think with regard to the issue of reality's relations to appearances? Rescher argues that the distinction between reality and its appearance is not a substantive distinction between two types of being, but rather relates to different ways of understanding one selfsame mode of being.
The book proposes that while realism is a sensible and tenable position, nevertheless there is something to be said for idealism as well. In the...

Rationality and Feminist Philosophy argues that the Enlightenment conception of rationality that feminists are fond of attacking is no longer a live concept. Deborah K. Heikes shows how contemporary theories of rationality are consonant with many feminist concerns and proposes that feminists need a substantive theory of rationality, which she argues should be a virtue theory of rationality.

Within both feminist and non-feminist philosophical circles, our understanding of rationality depends upon the concept's history. Heikes traces the development of theories of rationality from...

The Ethics of Husserl's Phenomenology aims to relocate the question of ethics at the very heart of Husserl's phenomenology. This is based on the idea that Husserl's phenomenology is an epistemological inquiry ultimately motivated by an ethical demand that pervades his writing from the publication of Logical Investigations (1900-1901) up to The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1935).
Joaquim Siles-Borras traces the ethical concepts apparent throughout Husserl's main body of work and argues that Husserl's phenomenology of consciousness, experience and meaning...

Free Will and Continental Philosophy explores the concepts of free-will and self-determination in the Continental philosophical tradition. David Rose examines the ways in which Continental philosophy offers a viable alternative to the hegemonic scientistic approach taken by analytic philosophy. Rose claims that the problem of free-will is only a problem if one makes an unnecessary assumption consistent with scientific rationalism.
In the sphere of human action we assume that, since action is a physical event, it must be reducible to the laws and concepts of science. Hence, the...

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is widely known for his emphasis on embodied perceptual experience. This emphasis initially relied heavily on the positive results of Gestalt psychology in addressing issues in philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind from a phenomenological standpoint. Eventually he transformed this account in light of his investigations in linguistics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of history and institutions. Far less work has been done in addressing his evolving conception of philosophy and how this account influenced more general philosophical issues in epistemology,...