For almost four decades, Made Simple books have set the standard for continuing education and home study. In answer to the changing needs of today's marketplace, the Made Simple series for the '90s presents a thoroughly up-to-the-minute portfolio of skills, information, and experience, with revised and updated editions of bestselling titles, plus a whole range of new subjects from personal finance to office management to desktop publishing.

Analytic philosophy is difficult to define since it is not so much a specific doctrine as a loose concatenation of approaches to problems. As well as having strong ties to scientism -the notion that only the methods of the natural sciences give rise to knowledge -it also has humanistic ties to the great thinkers and philosophical problems of the past. Moreover, no single feature characterizes the activities of analytic philosophers. Undaunted by these difficulties, Avrum Stroll investigate...

The problem of the nature of fiction and the problem of nonexistence are closely tied because fiction often talks about nonexistent entities. In Fiction, Reference, and Nonexistence, A. P. Martinich and Avrum Stroll, two of America's leading philosophers, explore fiction and undertake an analytic philosophical study of fiction and its reference and its relation to truth. Included in the discussion is the authors' new, contemporary theory of fiction developed as an extension of the...

Among the Greeks and Romans of the classical age philosophy occupied the place taken by religion among ourselves. Their appeal was to reason not to revelation. To what, asks Cicero in his Offices, are we to look for training in virtue, if not to philosophy? Now, if truth is believed to rest upon authority it is natural that it should be impressed upon the mind from the earliest age, since the essential thing is that it should be believed, but a truth which makes its appeal to reason must b...

Passionate and spiritual writings uncovering the philosophical foundations of one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkersKahlil Gibran's works are known throughout the world for their lyrical grandeur, wisdom, and insights drawn from the everyday sufferings of man. This nine-book collection captures one of modern history's titanic literary figures at his best. Texts such as "The Secret of the Heart," "Laughter and Tears," and "Song of the Flower" reveal the viv...

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) is widely regarded as the founding figure of the philosophical movement of "phenomenology." Husserl's philosophical program was both embraced and rejected by many, but in either case, his ideas set the stage for and exercised an enormous influence on the development of much of the philosophy that followed. In particular, his thought provides the backdrop and impetus for movements such as existentialism, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. Also, because of his caree...

Peter Unger's provocative new book poses a serious challenge to contemporary analytic philosophy, arguing that to its detriment it focuses the predominance of its energy on "empty ideas." In the mid-twentieth century, philosophers generally agreed that, by contrast with science, philosophy should offer no substantial thoughts about the general nature of concrete reality. Leading philosophers were concerned with little more than the semantics of ordinary words. For example: Our word "percei...

The book identifies the specific ethical aspects of sustainability and develops ethical tools to analyze them. It also provides a methodological framework to integrate ethical and scientific analyses of sustainability issues, and explores the notion of a new type of self-reflective inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability research. With this, the book aims to strengthen the overall ability of academics to contribute to the analysis and solution of sustainability issues in an inclusive a...

Now available as an ebook, this acclaimed A-Z dictionary is a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the superstitions, old and new, of the English-speaking world, complete with their origins, meanings and variant forms. It includes just about everything from touching wood, crossing fingers and identifying future lovers to folk remedies, spells and modern beliefs relating to the lottery, the computer and the mobile phone. A first-class source book for the historian, folklorist and casual re...

This volume contains a selection of authoritative essays exploring thecentral questions raised by the conjectured technological singularity.In informed yet jargon-free contributions written by active researchscientists, philosophers and sociologists, it goes beyond philosophicaldiscussion to provide a detailed account of the risks that the singularityposes to human society and, perhaps most usefully, the possible actionsthat society and techn...

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is Nietzsche's most problematic text. There appears to be no thematic connection between its four Parts and numerous sections. To make it even worse, the book contains a number of thematic contradictions. The standard approach has been a method of selective reading, that is, most critics select a few brilliant passages for edification and ignore the rest. This approach has turned Nietzsche's text into a collection of disjointed fragments. Going against this ...

Metaphors and Logic Metaphors are among the most vigorous offspring of the creative mind; but their vitality springs from the fact that they are logical organisms in the ecology of l- guage. I aim to use logical techniques to analyze the meanings of metaphors. My goal here is to show how contemporary formal semantics can be extended to handle metaphorical utterances. What distinguishes this work is that it focuses intensely on the logical aspects of metaphors. I stress the role of lo...