Practical and Theoretical Reason in Modern Philosophy


Book Description

The present collection aims to examine this fertile period in the history of philosophy concerning its significance for understanding the relation between theoretical and practical reason, or, relatedly, facts and values. Our contributors have explored different important ways in which both the shortcomings and insights of the theoretical/practical distinction have shaped Western philosophy.




Critique of Practical Reason


Book Description

This 1788 work, based on belief in the immortality of the soul, established Kant as a vindicator of the truth of Christianity. It offers the most complete statement of his theory of free will.




The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy


Book Description

This 2006 volume provides the broadest and deepest introduction to Kant currently available.




Kant's Critique of Pure Reason


Book Description

Kant’s "Critique of Pure Reason" is so outstanding among modern philosophical works, that it can be termed "the" foundation of modern philosophy. Schopenhauer termed it "the most important book ever to have been written in Europe." Otfried Höffe guides the reader through the "Critique" one step at a time, expounding Kant’s thoughts, submitting them to an interpretation and drawing a summary conclusion, placing the work and its topics within the context of its modern successors. A "critical" interpretation of Kant’s text reveals that he had something to say on many discussions that are said to have originated after his death. Reducing his argumentation to its central tenets, it can be made stronger and applicable to current problems. Kant’s eventual concern, however, even when writing theoretical philosophy, lay with the practical. Elaborating this concern and its connection to Kant’s theoretical philosophy is a prime tenet of this book.




The Modern Philosophical Revolution


Book Description

The Modern Philosophical Revolution breaks new ground by demonstrating the continuity of European philosophy from Kant to Derrida. Much of the literature on European philosophy has emphasised the breaks that have occurred in the course of two centuries of thinking. But as David Walsh argues, such a reading overlooks the extent to which Kant, Hegel, and Schelling were already engaged in the turn toward existence as the only viable mode of philosophising. Where many similar studies summarise individual thinkers, this book provides a framework for understanding the relationships between them. Walsh thus dispels much of the confusion that assails readers when they are only exposed to the bewildering range of positions taken by the philosophers he examines. His book serves as an indispensable guide to a philosophical tradition that continues to have resonance in the post-modern world.




Bridging the Gap between Aristotle's Science and Ethics


Book Description

Explores the extent to which Aristotle's ethical treatises employ the concepts, methods, and practices developed in his 'scientific' works.




Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics


Book Description

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant famously criticizes traditional metaphysics and its proofs of immortality, free will and God's existence. What is often overlooked is that Kant also explains why rational beings must ask metaphysical questions about 'unconditioned' objects such as souls, uncaused causes or God, and why answers to these questions will appear rationally compelling to them. In this book, Marcus Willaschek reconstructs and defends Kant's account of the rational sources of metaphysics. After carefully explaining Kant's conceptions of reason and metaphysics, he offers detailed interpretations of the relevant passages from the Critique of Pure Reason (in particular, the 'Transcendental Dialectic') in which Kant explains why reason seeks 'the unconditioned'. Willaschek offers a novel interpretation of the Transcendental Dialectic, pointing up its 'positive' side, while at the same time it uncovers a highly original account of metaphysical thinking that will be relevant to contemporary philosophical debates.




The Actual and the Possible


Book Description

The Actual and the Possible presents new essays by leading specialists on modality and the metaphysics of modality in the history of modern philosophy from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. It revisits key moments in the history of modern modal doctrines, and illuminates lesser-known moments of that history. The ultimate purpose of this historical approach is to contextualise and even to offer some alternatives to dominant positions within the contemporary philosophy of modality. Hence the volume contains not only new scholarship on the early-modern doctrines of Baruch Spinoza, G. W. F. Leibniz, Christian Wolff and Immanuel Kant, but also work relating to less familiar nineteenth-century thinkers such as Alexius Meinong and Jan Lukasiewicz, together with essays on celebrated nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers such as G. W. F. Hegel, Martin Heidegger and Bertrand Russell, whose modal doctrines have not previously garnered the attention they deserve. The volume thus covers a variety of traditions, and its historical range extends to the end of the twentieth century, addressing the legacy of W. V. Quine's critique of modality within recent analytic philosophy.







The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy


Book Description

The nineteenth century is a period of stunning philosophical originality, characterised by radical engagement with the emerging human sciences. Often overshadowed by twentieth century philosophy which sought to reject some of its central tenets, the philosophers of the nineteenth century have re-emerged as profoundly important figures. The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy is an outstanding survey and assessment of the century as a whole. Divided into seven parts and including thirty chapters written by leading international scholars, the Companion examines and assesses the central topics, themes, and philosophers of the nineteenth century, presenting the first comprehensive picture of the period in a single volume: German Idealism philosophy as political action, including young Hegelians, Marx and Tocqueville philosophy and subjectivity, including Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche scientific naturalism, including Darwinism, philosophy of race, experimental psychology and Neo-Kantianism utilitarianism and British Idealism American Idealism and Pragmatism new directions in Mind and Logic, including Brentano, Frege and Husserl. The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy is essential reading for students of philosophy, and for anyone interested in this period in related disciplines such as politics, history, literature and religion.