Conversations on the elements of metaphysics, tr. by R. Pennell
Author: Claude Buffier
Publisher:
Published: 1838
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13:
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The Metaphysics of Modern Existence
Author: Vine Deloria, Jr.
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
Published: 2012-09-01
Total Pages: 328
ISBN-13: 1555917666
DOWNLOAD EBOOKVine Deloria Jr., named one of the most influential religious thinkers in the world by Time, shares a framework for a new vision of reality. Bridging science and religion to form an integrated idea of the world, while recognizing the importance of tribal wisdom, The Metaphysics of Modern Existence delivers a revolutionary view of our future and our world.
One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics
Author: Edward C. Halper
Publisher: Parmenides Publishing
Published: 2005-01-12
Total Pages: 401
ISBN-13: 1930972474
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe problem of the one and the many is central to ancient Greek philosophy, but surprisingly little attention has been paid to Aristotle's treatment of it in the Metaphysics. This omission is all the more surprising because the Metaphysics is one of our principal sources for thinking that the problem is central and for the views of other ancient philosophers on it.The Central Books of the Metaphysics are widely recognized as the most difficult portion of a most difficult work. Halper uses the problem of the one and the many as a lens through which to examine the Central Books. What he sees is an extraordinary degree of doctrinal cogency and argumentative coherence in a work that almost everyone else supposes to be some sort of patchwork. Rather than trying to elucidate Aristotle's doctrines-most of which have little explicitly to do with the problem, Halper holds that the problem of the one and the many, in various formulations, is the key problematic from which Aristotle begins and with which he constructs his arguments. Thus, exploring the problem of the one and the many turns out to be a way to reconstruct Aristotle's arguments in the Metaphysics. Armed with the arguments, Halper is able to see Aristotle's characteristic doctrines as conclusions. These latter are, for the most part, supported by showing that they resolve otherwise insoluble problems. Moreover, having Aristotle's arguments enables Halper to delimit those doctrines and to resolve the apparent contradiction in Aristotle's account of primary ousia, the classic problem of the Central Books. Although there is no way to make the Metaphysics easy, this very thorough treatment of the text succeeds in making it surprisingly intelligible.
Introduction to the Philosophy of Sport
Author: Heather Reid
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2022-09-29
Total Pages: 335
ISBN-13: 1538156210
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis comprehensive text examines the history, significance, and philosophical dimensions of sport. Introduction to the Philosophy of Sport, second edition, is organized to reflect the traditional division of philosophy into metaphysical, ethical, epistemological and political issues, while incorporating specific concerns of today’s athletic world, such as technology, violence, and professionalism. The second edition features expanded sections on social categories (including race, gender, and disability), sport in schools, and collegiate sports. Each chapter includes discussion questions, and the book features a comprehensive glossary.
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals
Author: Iris Murdoch
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1994-03-01
Total Pages: 529
ISBN-13: 1101495790
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe decline of religion and ever increasing influence of science pose acute ethical issues for us all. Can we reject the literal truth of the Gospels yet still retain a Christian morality? Can we defend any 'moral values' against the constant encroachments of technology? Indeed, are we in danger of losing most of the qualities which make us truly human? Here, drawing on a novelist's insight into art, literature and abnormal psychology, Iris Murdoch conducts an ongoing debate with major writers, thinkers and theologians—from Augustine to Wittgenstein, Shakespeare to Sartre, Plato to Derrida—to provide fresh and compelling answers to these crucial questions.
Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics
Author: Marcus Willaschek
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2018-10-24
Total Pages: 312
ISBN-13: 110859607X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 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 Life of Plants
Author: Emanuele Coccia
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2019-01-16
Total Pages: 183
ISBN-13: 1509531548
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWe barely talk about them and seldom know their names. Philosophy has always overlooked them; even biology considers them as mere decoration on the tree of life. And yet plants give life to the Earth: they produce the atmosphere that surrounds us, they are the origin of the oxygen that animates us. Plants embody the most direct, elementary connection that life can establish with the world. In this highly original book, Emanuele Coccia argues that, as the very creator of atmosphere, plants occupy the fundamental position from which we should analyze all elements of life. From this standpoint, we can no longer perceive the world as a simple collection of objects or as a universal space containing all things, but as the site of a veritable metaphysical mixture. Since our atmosphere is rendered possible through plants alone, life only perpetuates itself through the very circle of consumption undertaken by plants. In other words, life exists only insofar as it consumes other life, removing any moral or ethical considerations from the equation. In contrast to trends of thought that discuss nature and the cosmos in general terms, Coccia’s account brings the infinitely small together with the infinitely big, offering a radical redefinition of the place of humanity within the realm of life.
Derrida on Being as Presence
Author: David A. White
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Published: 2017-04-24
Total Pages: 348
ISBN-13: 3110540142
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJacques Derrida’s extensive early writings devoted considerable attention to “being as presence,” the reality underlying the history of metaphysics. In Derrida on Being as Presence: Questions and Quests, David A. White develops the intricate conceptual structure of this notion by close exegetical readings drawn from these writings. White discusses cardinal concepts in Derrida’s revamping of theoretical considerations pertaining to language–signification, context, negation, iterability–as these considerations depend on the structure of being as presence and also as they ground “deconstructive” reading. White’s appraisal raises questions invoking a range of problems. He deploys these questions in conjunction with thematically related quests that arise given Derrida’s conviction that the history of metaphysics, as variations on being as presence, has concealed and skewed vital elements of reality. White inflects this critical apparatus concerning being as presence with texts drawn from that history–e.g., by Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Hume, Kant, Whitehead. The essay concludes with a speculative ensemble of provisional categories, or zones of specificity. Implementing these categories will ground the possibility that philosophy in general and metaphysics in particular can be pursued in ways which acknowledge the relevance of Derrida’s thought when integrated with the philosophical enterprise as traditionally understood.
Letters and Conversations: Pascal’s Personal and Public Correspondence
Author: Blaise Pascal
Publisher: Livraria Press
Published: 2024-05-09
Total Pages: 135
ISBN-13: 3689384672
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis newly translated collection of Pascal's letters offers a glimpse into Pascal’s personal life and relationships, as well as his famous public correspondence defending religious and philosophical views. Letters to Family is a complete collection of letters between Pascal and his three sisters (Gilberte Périer, his older sister), Jacqueline Pascal (a poet and younger sister of Pascal) and Marguerite Périer, the niece of Pascal. Pascal's family were accomplished in their own right. Jacqueline was an accomplished Poet, and Gilberte wrote a biography on Pascal after he passed. The Letter on the Possibility of Fulfilling God's Commandments (1656) is a major theological work by Blaise Pascal, written during the controversy between the Jansenists and the Jesuits. In this letter, Pascal defends the Jansenist view of grace and human free will, and addresses the question of whether human beings can fulfill God's commandments without divine grace. Pascal argues that while God's commandments are just and righteous, human nature after the Fall is too corrupted by sin to fulfill them without the intervention of God's grace. This letter criticizes the Jesuit belief in the human ability to fulfill the divine law through personal effort, without the need for grace. Pascal insists that only through God's grace can man achieve true obedience to His laws. This work is part of Pascal's broader defense of Jansenist theology, which emphasizes the role of grace in salvation and human dependence on divine assistance for moral and spiritual progress. This new Reader's Edition from Livraria Press contains a new Afterword by the translator on Pascal's personal relationship with Descartes and his intellectual objections to the new Cartesian rationality which fundamentally changed the course of both Science and Philosophy and a short biography on Pascal's life and impact. This is followed by a timeline of his life and relationships, an index of his core Philosophic terminology, a chronological list and summary of all of his published and posthumous works, and the text of Pascal's Memorial, a poetic, fragmented account of his divine vision in 1654. This extra material introduces the reader to Pascal's metaphysical works and brings to life Pascal's witness of the dawn of a new Scientific age. This is volume 2 of the 7-part Complete Works of Pascal by Livraria Press. This volume covers Pascal’s groundbreaking contributions to mathematics, science, and engineering, as well as his Scientific-Philosophical commentary on the Enlightenment's Scientific progress. This volume contains: 1643: Letters to Family 1649: Letter on the Death of Pascal the Father 1656: Letter on the Possibility of Accomplishing God’s Commandments
Philosophy’s Artful Conversation
Author: D. N. Rodowick
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2015-01-05
Total Pages: 337
ISBN-13: 0674967380
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTheory has been an embattled discourse in the academy for decades. But now it faces a serious challenge from those who want to model the analytical methods of all scholarly disciplines on the natural sciences. What is urgently needed, says D. N. Rodowick, is a revitalized concept of theory that can assess the limits of scientific explanation and defend the unique character of humanistic understanding. Philosophy’s Artful Conversation is a timely and searching examination of theory’s role in the arts and humanities today. Expanding the insights of his earlier book, Elegy for Theory, and drawing on the diverse thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. H. von Wright, P. M. S. Hacker, Richard Rorty, and Charles Taylor, Rodowick provides a blueprint of what he calls a “philosophy of the humanities.” In a surprising and illuminating turn, he views the historical emergence of theory through the lens of film theory, arguing that aesthetics, literary studies, and cinema studies cannot be separated where questions of theory are concerned. These discourses comprise a conceptual whole, providing an overarching model of critique that resembles, in embryonic form, what a new philosophy of the humanities might look like. Rodowick offers original readings of Gilles Deleuze and Stanley Cavell, bringing forward unexamined points of contact between two thinkers who associate philosophical expression with film and the arts. A major contribution to cross-disciplinary intellectual history, Philosophy’s Artful Conversation reveals the many threads connecting the arts and humanities with the history of philosophy.
