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On Loyalty and Loyalties: The Contours of a Problematic Virtue
by John KleinigDeep friendship may express profound loyalty, but so too may virulent nationalism. What can and should we say about this Janus-faced virtue of the will? This volume explores at length the contours of an important and troubling virtue -- its cognates, contrasts, and perversions; its strengths and weaknesses; its awkward relations with universal morality; its oppositional form and limits; as well as the ways in which it functions in various associative connections, such as friendship and familial relations, organizations and professions, nations, countries, and religious tradition.
On Madness: Understanding the Psychotic Mind
by Richard G. GippsCan we reach the psychotic subject in their delusion? Psychopathological theorists often try to find a way to characterise this subject's inner predicament so that their opaque utterances and actions will now rationally hang together. In this pathbreaking work, philosopher and clinical psychologist Richard G. T. Gipps demonstrates how such efforts at rational retrieval actually result in us setting our face against the psychotic subject in their distress. Bringing together patient memoir, psychopathological observation and philosophical thought, Gipps offers a profound alternative. On the one hand he shows how, by appreciating just why we can't locate rational order within psychotic thought, we can better understand what it is to suffer delusion and psychosis. On the other, he recovers for us the value of such expressive, motivational and symbolic forms of understanding as only become available once we've been turned away at reason's door. In such ways Gipps not only solves the psychopathological problem of delusion, but also shows us how to bear a truer witness to the psychotic subject in their brokenness, pain and despair.
On Madness: Understanding the Psychotic Mind
by Richard G. GippsCan we reach the psychotic subject in their delusion? Psychopathological theorists often try to find a way to characterise this subject's inner predicament so that their opaque utterances and actions will now rationally hang together. In this pathbreaking work, philosopher and clinical psychologist Richard G. T. Gipps demonstrates how such efforts at rational retrieval actually result in us setting our face against the psychotic subject in their distress. Bringing together patient memoir, psychopathological observation and philosophical thought, Gipps offers a profound alternative. On the one hand he shows how, by appreciating just why we can't locate rational order within psychotic thought, we can better understand what it is to suffer delusion and psychosis. On the other, he recovers for us the value of such expressive, motivational and symbolic forms of understanding as only become available once we've been turned away at reason's door. In such ways Gipps not only solves the psychopathological problem of delusion, but also shows us how to bear a truer witness to the psychotic subject in their brokenness, pain and despair.
On Manners (Thinking in Action)
by Karen StohrMany otherwise enlightened people often dismiss etiquette as a trivial subject or—worse yet—as nothing but a disguise for moral hypocrisy or unjust social hierarchies. Such sentiments either mistakenly assume that most manners merely frame the “real issues” of any interpersonal exchange or are the ugly vestiges of outdated, unfair social arrangements. But in On Manners, Karen Stohr turns the tables on these easy prejudices, demonstrating that the scope of manners is much broader than most people realize and that manners lead directly to the roots of enduring ethical questions. Stohr suggests that though manners are mostly conventional, they are nevertheless authoritative insofar as they are a primary means by which we express moral attitudes and commitments and carry out important moral goals. Drawing primarily on Aristotle and Kant and with references to a wide range of cultural examples—from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm—the author ultimately concludes that good manners are essential to moral character.
On Manners (Thinking in Action)
by Karen StohrMany otherwise enlightened people often dismiss etiquette as a trivial subject or—worse yet—as nothing but a disguise for moral hypocrisy or unjust social hierarchies. Such sentiments either mistakenly assume that most manners merely frame the “real issues” of any interpersonal exchange or are the ugly vestiges of outdated, unfair social arrangements. But in On Manners, Karen Stohr turns the tables on these easy prejudices, demonstrating that the scope of manners is much broader than most people realize and that manners lead directly to the roots of enduring ethical questions. Stohr suggests that though manners are mostly conventional, they are nevertheless authoritative insofar as they are a primary means by which we express moral attitudes and commitments and carry out important moral goals. Drawing primarily on Aristotle and Kant and with references to a wide range of cultural examples—from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm—the author ultimately concludes that good manners are essential to moral character.
On Meaningful Scientific Laws
by Jean-Claude Falmagne Christopher DobleThe authors describe systematic methods for uncovering scientific laws a priori, on the basis of intuition, or “Gedanken Experiments”. Mathematical expressions of scientific laws are, by convention, constrained by the rule that their form must be invariant with changes of the units of their variables. This constraint makes it possible to narrow down the possible forms of the laws. It is closely related to, but different from, dimensional analysis. It is a mathematical book, largely based on solving functional equations. In fact, one chapter is an introduction to the theory of functional equations.
On Memory, Marriage, Tears and Meditation (Reading Augustine)
by Margaret R. MilesOn Memory, Marriage, Tears, and Meditation offers readers the tools for reading Augustine's journey to human emotions through his writings on feeling, marriage, conversion, and meditation. Augustine understood that feeling, not rationality, gathers and reveals the deep longing of the whole person. Throughout his ecclesiastical career, he discussed marriage in sermons, letters, and treatises from the perspective of his own experience. Miles examines Augustine's prototypes for conversion – reading and conversion; sacrifice and conversion; and the importance of friends in what might be considered a subjective and private process. Meditation was central to Augustine's Christian life and Miles argues that his practice of meditation suggests that penitence included a rich range of feeling leading to gratitude, peace, wonder, and love.
On Memory, Marriage, Tears and Meditation (Reading Augustine)
by Margaret R. MilesOn Memory, Marriage, Tears, and Meditation offers readers the tools for reading Augustine's journey to human emotions through his writings on feeling, marriage, conversion, and meditation. Augustine understood that feeling, not rationality, gathers and reveals the deep longing of the whole person. Throughout his ecclesiastical career, he discussed marriage in sermons, letters, and treatises from the perspective of his own experience. Miles examines Augustine's prototypes for conversion – reading and conversion; sacrifice and conversion; and the importance of friends in what might be considered a subjective and private process. Meditation was central to Augustine's Christian life and Miles argues that his practice of meditation suggests that penitence included a rich range of feeling leading to gratitude, peace, wonder, and love.
On Mercy
by Malcolm BullIs mercy more important than justice?Since antiquity, mercy has been regarded as a virtue. The power of monarchs was legitimated by their acts of clemency, their mercy demonstrating their divine nature. Yet by the end of the eighteenth century, mercy had become “an injustice committed against society . . . a manifest vice.” Mercy was exiled from political life. How did this happen?In this book, Malcolm Bull analyses and challenges the Enlightenment’s rejection of mercy. A society operating on principles of rational self-interest had no place for something so arbitrary and contingent, and having been excluded from Hobbes’s theory of the state and Hume’s theory of justice, mercy disappeared from the lexicon of political theory. But, Bull argues, these idealised conceptions have proved too limiting. Political realism demands recognition of the foundational role of mercy in society. If we are vulnerable to harm from others, we are in need of their mercy. By restoring the primacy of mercy over justice, we may constrain the powerful and release the agency of the powerless. And if arguments for capitalism are arguments against mercy, might the case for mercy challenge the very basis of our thinking about society and the state?An important contribution to contemporary political philosophy from an inventive thinker, On Mercy makes a persuasive case for returning this neglected virtue to the heart of political thought.
On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears
by Stephen T. AsmaHailed as "a feast" (Washington Post) and "a modern-day bestiary" (The New Yorker), Stephen Asma's On Monsters is a wide-ranging cultural and conceptual history of monsters--how they have evolved over time, what functions they have served for us, and what shapes they are likely to take in the future. Beginning at the time of Alexander the Great, the monsters come fast and furious--Behemoth and Leviathan, Gog and Magog, Satan and his demons, Grendel and Frankenstein, circus freaks and headless children, right up to the serial killers and terrorists of today and the post-human cyborgs of tomorrow. Monsters embody our deepest anxieties and vulnerabilities, Asma argues, but they also symbolize the mysterious and incoherent territory beyond the safe enclosures of rational thought. Exploring sources as diverse as philosophical treatises, scientific notebooks, and novels, Asma unravels traditional monster stories for the clues they offer about the inner logic of an era's fears and fascinations. In doing so, he illuminates the many ways monsters have become repositories for those human qualities that must be repudiated, externalized, and defeated.
On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears
by Stephen T. AsmaHailed as "a feast" (Washington Post) and "a modern-day bestiary" (The New Yorker), Stephen Asma's On Monsters is a wide-ranging cultural and conceptual history of monsters--how they have evolved over time, what functions they have served for us, and what shapes they are likely to take in the future. Beginning at the time of Alexander the Great, the monsters come fast and furious--Behemoth and Leviathan, Gog and Magog, Satan and his demons, Grendel and Frankenstein, circus freaks and headless children, right up to the serial killers and terrorists of today and the post-human cyborgs of tomorrow. Monsters embody our deepest anxieties and vulnerabilities, Asma argues, but they also symbolize the mysterious and incoherent territory beyond the safe enclosures of rational thought. Exploring sources as diverse as philosophical treatises, scientific notebooks, and novels, Asma unravels traditional monster stories for the clues they offer about the inner logic of an era's fears and fascinations. In doing so, he illuminates the many ways monsters have become repositories for those human qualities that must be repudiated, externalized, and defeated.
On Moral Capital
by Xiaoxi WangThis book promotes the original concept of “Moral Capital” as the key to analyzing the nature and function of morality in economic activities. The book is divided into three major sections. In the first, the author argues that the logical connections between morality and economy and those between morality and profit provide a concrete theoretical basis for the concept of moral capital. In the second, the author elucidates the concept, the form and the functional mechanism of moral capital. In the third, the author describes the economic ethics of traditional Chinese intellectual history, especially the main idea of morality’s role in economics, which shows the historical narrative of this concept and provides resources on ideological history, helping businesses to establish their own moral capital approaches and accumulate moral capital. In the fourth, the author explores the special economic role of morality, and proposes an evaluation index system for assessing moral assets in enterprises, demonstrating the concept of moral capital’s significance from both a theoretical and application-oriented standpoint.
On Moral Certainty, Justification and Practice: A Wittgensteinian Perspective
by J. HermannTaking inspiration from the later Wittgenstein, On Moral Certainty, Justification and Practice explores the practical basis of human morality. It offers an account of moral certainty, which it links with a view of moral competence. Drawing on everyday examples, it is shown how morality is grounded in action, not in reasoning.
On Moral Considerability: An Essay on Who Morally Matters
by Mark H. BernsteinIn this fresh and powerfully argued book, Mark Bernstein identifies the qualities that make an entity deserving of moral consideration. It is frequently assumed that only (normal) human beings count. Bernstein argues instead for "experientialism"--the view that having conscious experiences is necessary and sufficient for moral standing. He demonstrates that this position requires us to include many non-human animals in our moral realm, but not to the extent that many deep ecologists champion.
On Moral Law and Quest for Selfhood
by Mohan ParasainThis book offers an original intersection of concepts from Immanuel Kant’s moral command ethics and Søren Kierkegaard’s existential ethics. The Kantian formulation of moral law is based on theoretical ground while Kierkegaardian ethics of the quest for selfhood views it as the very act of living. The present work provides an account of both these perspectives and questions whether these approaches to morality are mutually exclusionary. Using Slavoj Žižek’s ‘parallax view’ in the realm of morality, it argues that moral philosophy must engage with a constant critique of ‘difference’ around which the transformation of our various perspectives to morality revolves. This work appeals for furtherance of the conversation model and participation of perspectives to transcend ‘positional confinement’. It advocates the traversing of the ethical parallax to allow for intellectual openness and an empathetic perception of the ‘other’. Engaging and well-researched, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of ethics, political philosophy and continental philosophy.
On Moral Law and Quest for Selfhood
by Mohan ParasainThis book offers an original intersection of concepts from Immanuel Kant’s moral command ethics and Søren Kierkegaard’s existential ethics. The Kantian formulation of moral law is based on theoretical ground while Kierkegaardian ethics of the quest for selfhood views it as the very act of living. The present work provides an account of both these perspectives and questions whether these approaches to morality are mutually exclusionary. Using Slavoj Žižek’s ‘parallax view’ in the realm of morality, it argues that moral philosophy must engage with a constant critique of ‘difference’ around which the transformation of our various perspectives to morality revolves. This work appeals for furtherance of the conversation model and participation of perspectives to transcend ‘positional confinement’. It advocates the traversing of the ethical parallax to allow for intellectual openness and an empathetic perception of the ‘other’. Engaging and well-researched, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of ethics, political philosophy and continental philosophy.
On Music (Thinking in Action)
by Theodore GracykOpinionated and example-filled, this extremely concise and accessible book provides a survey of some fundamental and longstanding debates about the nature of music. The central arguments and ideas of historical and contemporary philosophers are presented with the goal of making them as accessible as possible to general readers who have no background in philosophy. The emphasis is on instrumental music, but examples are drawn from many cultures as well as from Western classical, jazz, folk, and popular music.
On Music (Thinking in Action)
by Theodore GracykOpinionated and example-filled, this extremely concise and accessible book provides a survey of some fundamental and longstanding debates about the nature of music. The central arguments and ideas of historical and contemporary philosophers are presented with the goal of making them as accessible as possible to general readers who have no background in philosophy. The emphasis is on instrumental music, but examples are drawn from many cultures as well as from Western classical, jazz, folk, and popular music.
On Music, Sense, Affect and Voice (Reading Augustine)
by Carol HarrisonThis book explores early reflections on music and its effects on the mind and soul. Augustine is an obvious choice for such an analysis, as his De Musica is the only treatise on music by a Christian writer in the first five centuries AD; concerned not only with poetic metre and rhythm, but also with an ontology of music. Focusing on the six books of De Musica, the Confessions and the Homilies on the Psalms, Carol Harrison argues that Augustine establishes a psychology, ethics and aesthetics of musical perception, which considered together form an effective theology of music. For Augustine, music-both heard and performed- becomes the means by which we can sense and participate in divine grace. Composed by one of the world's foremost Augustine scholars, this book is a concise and powerful exploration of Augustine's writing and reflections on music and, by extension, the intimate relationship between music, religion, and philosophy.
On Music, Sense, Affect and Voice (Reading Augustine)
by Carol HarrisonThis book explores early reflections on music and its effects on the mind and soul. Augustine is an obvious choice for such an analysis, as his De Musica is the only treatise on music by a Christian writer in the first five centuries AD; concerned not only with poetic metre and rhythm, but also with an ontology of music. Focusing on the six books of De Musica, the Confessions and the Homilies on the Psalms, Carol Harrison argues that Augustine establishes a psychology, ethics and aesthetics of musical perception, which considered together form an effective theology of music. For Augustine, music-both heard and performed- becomes the means by which we can sense and participate in divine grace. Composed by one of the world's foremost Augustine scholars, this book is a concise and powerful exploration of Augustine's writing and reflections on music and, by extension, the intimate relationship between music, religion, and philosophy.
On Muslim Democracy: Essays and Dialogues (Religion and Global Politics)
by Rached GhannouchiMany Muslim intellectuals and political activists have begun to move beyond classical political Islam to embrace a more pluralistic, democratic order by developing the concept of "Muslim democracy." Perhaps the most prominent example is the Tunisian Ennahda Party, which declared itself to no longer be "Islamist" but a "Muslim Democratic" party in 2016. While there has been some scholarship on the phenomenon of "Muslim democracy," this book represents the first volume in English to offer a translation of primary source texts elaborating its ideological contours. The head of the Ennahda Party, and an internationally prominent Muslim political thinker and intellectual, Rached Ghannouchi is known around the world as the preeminent theorist of a reconciliation between modern Islamic political thought and democratic theory. On Muslim Democracy gathers a number of Ghannouchi's most important essays, making them available in English for the first time. The book also includes a lengthy philosophical-theological dialogue between Ghannouchi and American political theorist Andrew March. In the dialogues, March and Ghannouchi discuss the influences on and evolution of Ghannouchi's thought, and the meaning of concepts like democracy, pluralism, justice, and law across Islamic and Western philosophical traditions. This volume presents a well-rounded view into the influential work of Rached Ghannouchi, further supported by previously unpublished, illuminating conversations on critical topics in Muslim politics.
On Muslim Democracy: Essays and Dialogues (Religion and Global Politics)
by Rached GhannouchiMany Muslim intellectuals and political activists have begun to move beyond classical political Islam to embrace a more pluralistic, democratic order by developing the concept of "Muslim democracy." Perhaps the most prominent example is the Tunisian Ennahda Party, which declared itself to no longer be "Islamist" but a "Muslim Democratic" party in 2016. While there has been some scholarship on the phenomenon of "Muslim democracy," this book represents the first volume in English to offer a translation of primary source texts elaborating its ideological contours. The head of the Ennahda Party, and an internationally prominent Muslim political thinker and intellectual, Rached Ghannouchi is known around the world as the preeminent theorist of a reconciliation between modern Islamic political thought and democratic theory. On Muslim Democracy gathers a number of Ghannouchi's most important essays, making them available in English for the first time. The book also includes a lengthy philosophical-theological dialogue between Ghannouchi and American political theorist Andrew March. In the dialogues, March and Ghannouchi discuss the influences on and evolution of Ghannouchi's thought, and the meaning of concepts like democracy, pluralism, justice, and law across Islamic and Western philosophical traditions. This volume presents a well-rounded view into the influential work of Rached Ghannouchi, further supported by previously unpublished, illuminating conversations on critical topics in Muslim politics.
On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects
by Caspar HareCaspar Hare makes an original and compelling case for "egocentric presentism," a view about the nature of first-person experience, about what happens when we see things from our own particular point of view. A natural thought about our first-person experience is that "all and only the things of which I am aware are present to me." Hare, however, goes one step further and claims, counterintuitively, that the thought should instead be that "all and only the things of which I am aware are present." There is, in other words, something unique about me and the things of which I am aware. On Myself and Other, Less Important Subjects represents a new take on an old view, known as solipsism, which maintains that people's experiences give them grounds for believing that they have a special, distinguished place in the world--for example, believing that only they exist or that other people do not have conscious minds like their own. Few contemporary thinkers have taken solipsism seriously. But Hare maintains that the version of solipsism he argues for is in indeed defensible, and that it is uniquely capable of resolving some seemingly intractable philosophical problems--both in metaphysics and ethics--concerning personal identity over time, as well as the tension between self-interest and the greater good. This formidable and tightly argued defense of a seemingly absurd view is certain to provoke debate.
On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects
by Caspar Hare Mark JohnstonCaspar Hare makes an original and compelling case for "egocentric presentism," a view about the nature of first-person experience, about what happens when we see things from our own particular point of view. A natural thought about our first-person experience is that "all and only the things of which I am aware are present to me." Hare, however, goes one step further and claims, counterintuitively, that the thought should instead be that "all and only the things of which I am aware are present." There is, in other words, something unique about me and the things of which I am aware. On Myself and Other, Less Important Subjects represents a new take on an old view, known as solipsism, which maintains that people's experiences give them grounds for believing that they have a special, distinguished place in the world--for example, believing that only they exist or that other people do not have conscious minds like their own. Few contemporary thinkers have taken solipsism seriously. But Hare maintains that the version of solipsism he argues for is in indeed defensible, and that it is uniquely capable of resolving some seemingly intractable philosophical problems--both in metaphysics and ethics--concerning personal identity over time, as well as the tension between self-interest and the greater good. This formidable and tightly argued defense of a seemingly absurd view is certain to provoke debate.
On Mystery, Ineffability, Silence and Musical Symbolism (Reading Augustine)
by Laurence WuidarCollecting together numerous examples of Augustine's musical imagery in action, Laurence Wuidar reconstructs the linguistic laboratory and the hermeneutics in which he worked. Sensitive and poetical, this volume is a reminder that the metaphor of music can give access not only to human interiority, but allow the human mind to achieve proximity to the divine mind. Composed by one of Europe's leading musicologists now engaging an English-speaking audience for the first time, this book is a candid exploration of Wuidar's expertise. Drawing on her long knowledge of music and the occult, from antiquity to modernity, Wuidar particularly focuses upon Augustine's working methods while refusing to be distracted by questions of faith or morality. The result is an open and at times frightening vista on the powers that be, and our complex need to commune with them.