First published in 1961, An Introduction to General Metaphysics presentsGottfried Martin’s careful study of many of the passages in Plato and Aristotle which deal with metaphysical problems and in particular with the Platonic Theory of Ideas. He has traced the development of the theory both in early works and in late works such as the Parmenides and the Sophistes; and with equal care he has studied the relative passages in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. He has...

Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, first published in 1790, was the last of the great philosopher's three critiques, following on the heels of Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788). In the first two, Kant dealt with metaphysics and morality; in the third, Kant turns to the aesthetic dimension of human experience, showing how our experiences of natural and artistic beauty, the sublime magnitude and might of nature, and of pu...

"The Critique of Practical Reason" is considered by many to be one of the most important works on the subject of moral philosophy ever written. In this work Immanuel Kant puts forth his philosophy of the categorical imperative, a rule for behavior that applies universally. Kant argues that a categorical imperative must guide whatever maxim one establishes for dealing with all decisions with moral implications. "The Critique of Practical Reason" is an excellent work on the philosophy of mor...

Transformers began with toys and a cartoon series in 1984 and has since grown to include comic books, movies, and video games - its science fiction story has reached an audience with a wide range second only to that of Star Wars. Here, in Transformers and Philosophy, a dream team of philosophers pursues the fascinating questions posed by humankind’s encounter with an artificially intelligent mechanical civilization: Is genuine artificial intelligence possible? Wo...

Stay informed. Talk about the issues. Always be engaged. Liberal societies have encouraged their members to take part—or at least interest—in politics. Yet, even in developed nations where it is said to work, the democratic process as we know it routinely fails to give voice, on the one hand, and to appeal at all, on the other hand, to a good number of citizens.Whatever countervailing hopes the worldwide web gave rise to in its dawning years, far from restoring the “public sphere” ...

“The object of this book,” writes William C. Dowling in his preface, “is to make the key concepts of Paul Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative available to readers who might have felt bewildered by the twists and turns of its argument.” The sources of puzzlement are, he notes, many. For some, it is Ricoeur’s famously indirect style of presentation, in which the polarities of argument and exegesis seem so often and so suddenly to have reversed themselves. For others, it is the extraordinar...

The Literary Wittgenstein is a stellar collection of articles relating the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) to core problems in the theory and philosophy of literature.Amid growing recognition that Wittgenstein's philosophy has important implications for literary studies, this book brings together twenty-one articles by the most prominent figures in the field. Eighteen of the articles are published here for the first time.The Literary Wittgenstein

Aesthetics and Modernity brings together Agnes Heller's most recent essays around the topics of aesthetic genres such as painting, music, literature and comedy, aesthetic reception, and embodiment. The essays draw on Heller's deep appreciation of aesthetics in all its forms from the classical to the Renaissance and the contemporary periods. Heller's recent work on aesthetics explores the complex and fraught status of artworks within the context of the history of modernity. For Hel...

Immortal Comedy is the first book to 'think' philosophically about the comic phenomenon in general. Although author Agnes Heller had written a book that is both deeply scholarly and meditative on the subject of the comic form in film, literature, and life her writing is eminently approachable. In both its subject and style, Immortal Comedy is a seminal book. In it, Heller takes us on a journey through theories of comedy beginning with classical thought. She then detours through foundationa...

In Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls, Ruth Abbey collects eight essays responding to the work of John Rawls from a feminist perspective. An impressive introduction by the editor provides a chronological overview of English-language feminist engagements with Rawls from his Theory of Justice onward. Abbey surveys the range of issues canvassed by feminist readers of Rawls, as well as critics’ wide disagreement about the value of Rawls’s corpus for feminist purposes. The...

The Triumph of the Necrophiles is the product of over forty years of research and is the most thorough, comprehensive, and penetrating critique of the mechanical worldview ever written. Modrow meticulously traces the prescientific sources of that worldview back to our Judeo-Christian heritage and to the metaphysics of Plato and Pythagoras. He documents that Plato was in fact a necrophile and that his metaphysics can best be understood as a sublimation of his necrophilia. He discusses the i...

A controversial call to put honor at the center of moralityTo the modern mind, the idea of honor is outdated, sexist, and barbaric. It evokes Hamilton and Burr and pistols at dawn, not visions of a well-organized society. But for philosopher Tamler Sommers, a sense of honor is essential to living moral lives. In Why Honor Matters, Sommers argues that our collective rejection of honor has come at great cost. Reliant only on Enlightenment liberalism, the Uni...