Metaphysical Aporia and Philosophical Heresy


Book Description

From Descartes to the present, there has been a call for a new beginning in philosophy. Contemporary continental philosophy and American pragmatism continue to proclaim the end of one philosophic tradition and the beginning of another. The basis for many of these developments is the repudiation of metaphysics. The purpose of this book is to rethink the metaphysical traditions in terms of the continental and pragmatist critiques, rejecting a single view. The major works in the tradition are viewed as heretical. Philosophy has recurrently acknowledged aporia: "moments in the movement of thought in which it finds itself faced with unconquerable obstacles resulting from conflicts in its understanding of its own intelligibility." A chapter is devoted to each of the eight major philosophers and movements in the Western canonical tradition: the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Leibniz, empiricism, Kant, and Hegel. The last three chapters are devoted to contemporary discussions of the end of metaphysics, including the development of a "local" metaphysics that is able to express its own locality and aporia.




Aristotele's Metaphysics


Book Description

The authors collaborated with 50 scholars from around the world to produce an exhaustive annotated bibliography on the central work of the Aristotelian corpus. It brings together signed descriptions of more than 3200 books and articles, as well as several thousand reviews and notes, originally published in English, Italian, German, French, Spanish and Russian. Descriptions are fully cross-referenced to one another. The first [Italian] edition (Vita e Pensiero, Milan 1996) has been thoroughly revised, corrected and updated, and is complemented by an index of the most important loci Aristotelici.




Spinoza In English, A Bibliography


Book Description

Spinoza in English,/i is the first bibliography to document the entire 300-year record of books, monographs, dissertations and articles in English on Benedict Spinoza, as well as all translations of his works into English. Arranged alphabetically by author or editor, and internally cross-referenced in the case of anthologies and 'replies', this bibliography cites its own sources where appropriate and, in many cases, provides details on how to obtain out-of-print titles and unpublished dissertations. Additionally, it restores or corrects a good deal of earlier bibliographic detail and, beginning with titles from the mid-1800s, presents the citations in a uniform style. This second edition adds hundreds of citations, including dozens of titles hitherto overlooked, thus bringing the total to nearly 2700 on the main level (with hundreds of secondary references to later editions and reprints). It also provides an index and, occasionally, an abstract when the author's title inadequately describes the contents. As the only source of its kind, this bibliography is an indispensable reference tool for research libraries and individual scholars concerned with the life and works of Spinoza. Wayne Boucher's introduction is augmented by a preface by Professor Manfred Walther. --the most complete bibliography of works in English on Spinoza --enlarged, corrected and improved from first edition with numbered entries --uniquely comprehensive, current and authoritative --numbered entries and subject/title index for easy reference




Spinoza in English


Book Description

"Spinoza in English" is the first bibliography to bring together the entire 325-year record of books, monographs, dissertations, and articles in English on Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677), including translations of his works into English. Well over 2100 citations are presented, bringing this record through early 1991. Arranged alphabetically by author or editor and internally cross-referenced for ease of use, this bibliography also cites its own sources where appropriate and, in many cases, provides guidance on how to obtain unpublished or out-of- print titles. Additionally, it restores or corrects a good deal of earlier bibliographic detail, identifies dozens of publications hitherto overlooked, and, beginning with titles from the mid-1800's, presents the citations in a uniform style.




Being and Dialectic


Book Description

Philosophy without metaphysics is unthinkable, yet there has been much discussion of this—the end of metaphysics, or post-metaphysical thinking. This book takes issue with this proclamation of the end of metaphysics. It offers diverse arguments that metaphysics cannot be put behind us and has its own continuing contribution to the life of human culture. The contributors are a diverse group of thinkers whose work obviates the divide between analytic and continental philosophy. Here they explore the relations to metaphysics and dialectic, with regard to sources, to major themes, to individual thinkers, and to dialectic seen in cross-cultural perspective. Contributors to this book include George Allan, Vincent Colapietro, William Desmond, David L. Hall, Kevin Kennedy, Brian Martine, Robert Cummings Neville, Carl Page, Giacomo Rinaldi, Stephen David Ross, and David Weissman.




The Ring of Representation


Book Description

This book asks how we may undertake to represent representation.




Inexhaustibility and Human Being


Book Description

At a time when the metaphysical tradition is being called profoundly into question by proponents of pragmatism and continental philosophy, Inexhaustibility and Human Being examines a specific aspect of metaphysics: the nature of being human, acknowledging the force of these critiques and discussing their ramifications. Exploring the possibility of a systematic metaphysics that acknowledges the limits of every thought, the book offers a metaphysics of human being based on locality and inexhaustibility. Its major focus is on a corresponding "anthropology" in which human being is both local and exhaustive - that is, based on limitation and on the limitation of limitation. Among the book's major topics are: being as locality and inexhaustibility; human being as judgment and perspective; knowing and reason as query; language and meaning as semasis; emotion; sociality; politics; life and death. Clearly written, and wide-ranging in scope, Inexhaustibility and Human Being covers a multitude of subjects - history, love, sexuality, consciousness, suffering, the body, instrumentality, government, and law - in the development of its thesis. The book will appeal not only to philosophers - but also to those involved in studying the various arenas of human activity Professor Ross examines.




After the Future


Book Description

This book brings together diverse aspects of postmodernism by philosophers, literary critics, historians of architecture, and sociologists. It addresses the nature of postmodernism in painting, architecture, and the performing arts, and explores the social and political implications of postmodern theories of culture. The book raises the question of whether postmodernism is to be seen as one more epoch or period within a succession of eras, or as a challenge to the modernist practice of periodization itself. The nature of the subject and of subjectivity is explored in order to resituate and contextualize the autonomous subject of the modern literary traditions. Postmodern approaches to philosophy, both analytical and continental (including the work of Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Rorty, and Cavell) are scrutinized and compared with a view to the question of foundationalism and with respect to philosophy's historical reflection on its own exclusionary practices. After the Future discusses the ramifications of technology and programs for the renewal of community in a radically pluralistic society. It also discusses the question of language and the diverse ways of distinguishing the articulate from the inarticulate.




Locality and Practical Judgment


Book Description

The philosophical viewpoint Ross examines in Locality and Practical Judgment is related to the American naturalist and pragmatist traditions and to the views of many twentieth-century European philosophers. It bears affinities with historicism and existentialism, insofar as both emphasize aspects of human finiteness. What is new is the systematic development of locality in application to practical experience.




Expanding Process


Book Description

Expanding Process explores how comparative philosophy expands our understanding of the critical themes of process, change, and transformation. John H. Berthrong examines how notions of process manifest and shape the classical Confucianism of Xunzi, the early medieval Daosim of the Liezi, and Zhu Xi's Song Dynasty daoxue (Teaching of The Way). Berthrong links these various Chinese views of process and transformation to contemporary debates in the American process, pragmatic, and naturalist philosophical movements. Stressing how our pluralistic world calls for comparing and even appropriating insights from diverse cultural traditions, Berthrong contends that comparative philosophy and theology can broaden the intellectual frontiers and foundations of any serious student of contemporary global thought.