Nietzsche's controversial will to power thesis is convincingly rehabilitated in this compelling book. Tsarina Doyle presents a fresh interpretation of his account of nature and value, which sees him defy the dominant conception of nature in the Enlightenment and overturn Hume's distinction between facts and values. Doyle argues that Nietzsche challenges Hume indirectly through critical engagement with Kant's idealism, and that in so doing and despite some wrong turns, he establishes the possibility of objective value in response to nihilism and the causal efficacy of consciousness as a necessary condition of human autonomy. Her book will be important for scholars of Nietzsche's metaphysics, and of the history of philosophy and science more generally.
This volume is a collection of papers that advance our understanding of the metaphysics of powers — properties such as fragility and electric charge. The metaphysics of powers is a fast developing research field with fundamental questions at the forefront of current research, such as Can there be a world of only powers? What is the manifestation of a power? Are powers and their manifestations related by necessity? What are the prospects for dispositional accounts of causation? The papers focus on questions concerning the metaphysics of powers that cut across any particular subject-specific ontological domain -- whether philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, ethics, epistemology – investigating the metaphysical structure of powers, the nature of the manifestation of powers, the necessity or contingency of a power’s relation to its manifestations, and powers and causation. A number of authors also engage in discussion with Humean and neo-Humean treatments of causation, thereby making contributions to a larger metaphysical debate beyond powers. Additionally, the authors engage critically with the latest contributions to the debate on powers in the literature, thereby bringing together in a wholesome and analytical way the most recent and noteworthy theoretical developments in this research field.
Throughout history there have been great and illumined souls who have been able to use the power of their higher minds to perform seeming miracles. These men and women used a Cosmic Force which is in the universe and which anyone may use, when he once learns how to focus this higher power within his own mind. There are stupendous miracles such as healing the sick; causing the blind to see; making the crippled walk, but these are not the only miracles with which we are concerned in this Metaphysical study. There are the little, every-day miracles, which you may begin to perform immediately that relate to your health, to your work, to increasing your income, to finding happiness in love and marriage and to healing your mind of confusion, discord, and unhappiness, so that you may find inner peace and security. You will learn in this study that you too may become a miracle-worker; that you may wave the mental wand of Faith and create out of the substance of your thoughts and inner dreams the concrete things that you desire in your life. You may tap the power of this higher Cosmic Mind and create magnificent works, even as did the geniuses of the past who used this Miracle-working power. Beethoven used this higher mind within to create beautiful music, even though he was deaf; Edison tapped this power of the higher Cosmic Mind within and created over three hundred inventions, from the motion picture camera to the electric light bulb, which bless our lives today. Edison used the power which we shall study together, and there is no reason why YOU may not achieve greatness through this self-same Metaphysical power. Lincoln was a miracle-worker, and although a martyr, like Gandhi and John F. Kennedy, he brought the miracle of unity and greatness to a strife ridden nation. J.P. Morgan was a financier and industrialist, but he used the Metaphysical Miracle power which we shall study together to build one of the great financial empires of all time. This miracle power is not dead today; it is still being used by men like Paul G. Getty and Howard Hughes, Ford and Rockefeller to create wealth that not only benefits the ones who create it, but also blesses the world through the public libraries they endow, the research foundations they create and the artistic gifts and treasures which they give to our great art galleries and museums. The Miracles of Lourdes are well known, and I have stood in the sacred Grotto and I have seen the discarded crutches, wheel chairs and braces that the sick have left there when their miracles of healing came and they walked away healed by a miracle power that worked for them, but which does not seem to work for others. The spectacular miracles that the Master Metaphysician Jesus performed, and which we see at places like Lourdes, are not the only evidences that this Metaphysical Miracle Power exists and may be tapped by ordinary mortals; there are other evidences in our own age that this power is alive today and may be used to heal millions of still unborn persons and to save the lives of hundreds of millions today. Salk used this higher Miracle Power to develop his vaccine for polio; Fleming developed penicillin through this higher intuitive mind; Mme. and M. Curie discovered radium by listening to the inner Cosmic Voice that guided them; and Pasteur certainly was a miracle-worker unequalled in history for the perception that caused him to perfect the use of vaccines in the treatment and prevention of disease.
Tired of the average self-help book? Wake yourself up with spellbinding ideas in a quaint, quick format that frees you from massive advice of the past. Follow up with Questions and Answers to keep you alert and enlightened. The Magic of Metaphysics, with its dual approach of an instant philosophy and over 600 Q. & A.'s, is an exclusive revelation for you as a 21st century seeker. You can look forward to progressive thoughts that bring relief from everyday problems. You can enrich your life with the triple powers of Truth, Character, and Wealth. You will love the cosmic truths that mix with our modern civilization to probe life mysteries you have worried about but didn't know where to turn. Your loveliest benefit may be increased acquaintance with your soul. Will you accept the privilege of being among the first to profit from this gem of new knowledge for a new age'...
Why does a wine glass break when you drop it, whereas a steel goblet does not? The answer may seem obvious: glass, unlike steel, is fragile. This is an explanation in terms of a power or disposition: the glass breaks because it possesses a particular power, namely fragility. Seemingly simple, such intrinsic dispositions or powers have fascinated philosophers for centuries. A power's central task is explaining why a thing changes in the ways that it does, rather than in other ways: powers should explain why an acorn turns into an oak tree, not a sunflower, or why fire burns wood, and wood can catch fire. This volume examines the twists and turns of the fascinating history of a difficult philosophical concept, focusing on the metaphysical sense of "powers"--that is, the powers that are invoked in the explanation of natural changes and activities. Scholars probe the views of thinkers from antiquity to the present day: Anaxagoras, Plato, the Stoics, Abelard, Anselm, Henry of Ghent, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Margaret Cavendish, Mary Shepherd, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and numerous others. In addition, the volume contains four short reflection essays that examine the concept of powers from the perspective of disciplines other than philosophy, namely history of music, West African religions, history of chemistry, and history of art. The history of philosophy brims with controversies surrounding the concept of power, and these controversies have not diminished--particularly as potentialities or powers see a revival in contemporary analytic metaphysics. Hence, telling the history of philosophical theories of powers means exploring the trajectory of a concept whose importance to the past and present of philosophy can hardly be overstated.
Following Credit and Faith and Economic Theology, this third volume in the series develops a metaphysics which is missing when trust is ordered around economic theories and institutions. Human existence may be conceived according to its temporal dimensions of appropriation, participation, and offering. Engaging with the Western philosophical tradition from the Neo-Pythagoreans and Plato to Heidegger and Arendt, drawing especially from Augustine and Weil, Goodchild offers striking reconstructions of the meanings of economic, political and religious dimensions of life. The outcome is an elaboration of conceptions of wealth, power, contingency, necessity and grace which give a new orientation to human life and endeavour. Goodchild situates this discussion within the current historical era of the breakdown of global financial capitalism. He draws from the Financial Revolution in England as a time of crisis which illuminates our own. Faced with a range of global crises, Goodchild proposes an alternative between strategies for survival: either submission before a Great Machine of Credit as an autonomous, unthinking system for regulating human behaviour or accession to the necessity of grace as a way of empowering the pursuit of wealth, justice and thought.
We are used to distinguishing the despotic regimes of the 20th century - communism, fascism, National Socialism, Maoism - very precisely according to place and time, origins and influences. But what should we call that which they have in common? On this question, there has been and is still a passionate debate. This book documents the first international conference on this theme, a conference that took place in September of 1994 at the University of Munich. The book shows how new models for understanding political history arose from the experience of modern despotic regimes. Here, the most important concepts - totalitarianism and political religions - are discussed and tested in terms of their usefulness.
Fully extended and revised, A Companion to Metaphysics 2ndEdition includes a section of detailed review essays fromrenowned metaphysicians, and the addition of more than 30 newencyclopedic entries, taking the number of entries to over 300. Includes revisions to existing encyclopedic entries Features more than 30 all-new "A to Z" entries Offers a section of in-depth, essays from renownedmetaphysicians Provides the most complete and up-to-date reference guide forstudents and professionals alike
Nicholas F. Stang explores Kant's theory of possibility, from the precritical period of the 1750-60s to the Critical system initiated by the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. He argues that the key to understanding the relationship between these periods lies in Kant's reorientation of an ontological question towards a transcendental approach.
Professor Oliver's essays propose a system of relational philosophy and theology, extending his monograph, A Relational Metaphysic, along new lines. Themes developed include the following: on the issue of truth in scientific and religious discourse as seen from the claim of their complementarity; the problem of Western substantialism as answered by a proposed non- and antisubstantialist theory of selfhood as an alternative to the Western ego; certain hermeneutical themes; and several themes introducing new facets of relational thought.
