Thomas Aquinas (1224/6-1274) was first and foremost a Christian theologian. Yet he was also one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages. Drawing on classical authors, and incorporating ideas from Jewish and Arab sources, he came to offer a rounded and lasting account of the origin of the universe and of the things to be found within it, especially human beings.Aquinas wrote many works, but his greatest achievement is undoubtedly the Summa Theologiae. This presents ...

The only anthology available on material constitution, this book collects important recent work on well known puzzles in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. The extensive, clearly written introduction helps to make the essays accessible to a wide audience.

The Novum Organum is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon published in 1620. The title translates as "new instrument". This is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. For Bacon, finding the essence of a thing was a simple process of reduction, and the use of inductive reasoning. In finding the cause of a phenomenal nature such as he...

In Critical Thinking: An Appeal to Reason, Peg Tittle empowers students with a solid grounding in the lifelong skills of considered analysis and argumentation that should underpin every student’s education. Starting with the building blocks of a good argument, this comprehensive new textbook offers a full course in critical thinking. It includes chapters on the nature and structure of argument, the role of relevance, truth and generalizations, and the subtleties ...

Principles of Philosophy (Latin: Principia Philosophiæ) is a book by René Descartes. In essence it is a synthesis of the Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy It was written in Latin, published in 1644 and dedicated to Elisabeth of Bohemia, with whom Descartes had a long-standing friendship. A French version (Les Principes de la Philosophie) followed in 1647. It set forth the principles of nature—the Laws of Physics—as Descartes viewed them. Most notably, it set forth the...

In this engaging and wide-ranging new book, Nikk Effingham provides an introduction to contemporary ontology - the study of what exists - and its importance for philosophy today.He covers the key topics in the field, from the ontology of holes, numbers and possible worlds, to space, time and the ontology of material objects - for instance, whether there are composite objects such as tables, chairs or even you and me. While starting from the basics, every chapter is up-to-date with ...

The 'Novum Organum,' in the shape in which its author left it, is only a fragment of the larger work which Bacon contemplated under that title, as adequately representing the second part of the 'Great Instauration.' Nevertheless, though only a fragment, the 'Novum Organum,' and especially the first book, is the most carefully written of all Bacon's philosophical works. Moreover, as describing the new method of which the renovation of knowledge was to be the result, it is the keystone of th...

The author of Lying shows how the ethical issues raised by secrets and secrecy in our careers or private lives take us to the heart of the critical questions of private and public morality.

Graham Priest presents an original exploration of philosophical questions concerning the one and the many. He covers a wide range of issues in metaphysics--including unity, identity, grounding, mereology, universals, being, intentionality, and nothingness--and deploys the techniques of paraconsistent logic in order to offer a radically new treatment of unity. Priest brings together traditions of Western and Asian thought that are usually kept separate in academic philosophy: he dr...

Few philosophers or theologians exerted as much influence on the shape of medieval thought as Thomas Aquinas. He ranks amongst the most famous of the Western philosophers and was responsible for almost single-handedly bringing the philosophy of Aristotle into harmony with Christianity. He was also one of the first philosophers to argue that philosophy and theology could support each other. The shape of metaphysics, theology, and Aristotelian thought today still bears the imprint of Aquinas...

This new edition includes three new chapters, updating the book to take into account developments in the field over the past fifteen years.