The Realm of Facts
The Realm of Facts

Author: Nicholas Rescher

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-01-20

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 3110670119

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Knowledge of facts is essential for the management of life. Most studies of the subject examine how we go about trying to obtain it; they describe the processes and proceedings of rational inquiry. The present work steps back from this to inquire into the limits and limitations of such processes and to identify the assets and the limitabilities of what they are able to supply for us. It examines how knowledge of facts is secured and consolidated as such, and what the resulting information can and cannot provide. It argues that the unavoidable incompleteness of our factual information also endows it with an element of incorrectness. By looking also at the negative side of human inquiry the book’s perspective clarifies the nature of our grip on the facts that constitute our view of the reality of things.

The Realm of Reason
The Realm of Reason

Author: Christopher Peacocke

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0199270724

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Realm of Reason is a manifesto for a new rationalism in philosophy. Christopher Peacocke develops an original theory of what makes a thinker entitled to form a given belief. The theory is articulated in three principles of rationalism, which together imply that all entitlement has an element that is independent of experience. Peacocke elaborates this rationalism in detail for the classical issues of perceptual knowledge, induction, and the status of moral thought. Hisnew generalized approach to epistemology has applications throughout philosophy, and it will interest all concerned with knowledge, truth, and rationality.

Hegel's Realm of Shadows
Hegel's Realm of Shadows

Author: Robert B. Pippin

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-11-16

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 022658870X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Hegel frequently claimed that the heart of his entire system was a book widely regarded as among the most difficult in the history of philosophy, The Science of Logic. This is the book that presents his metaphysics, an enterprise that he insists can only be properly understood as a “logic,” or a “science of pure thinking.” Since he also wrote that the proper object of any such logic is pure thinking itself, it has always been unclear in just what sense such a science could be a “metaphysics.” Robert B. Pippin offers here a bold, original interpretation of Hegel’s claim that only now, after Kant’s critical breakthrough in philosophy, can we understand how logic can be a metaphysics. Pippin addresses Hegel’s deep, constant reliance on Aristotle’s conception of metaphysics, the difference between Hegel’s project and modern rationalist metaphysics, and the links between the “logic as metaphysics” claim and modern developments in the philosophy of logic. Pippin goes on to explore many other facets of Hegel’s thought, including the significance for a philosophical logic of the self-conscious character of thought, the dynamism of reason in Kant and Hegel, life as a logical category, and what Hegel might mean by the unity of the idea of the true and the idea of the good in the “Absolute Idea.” The culmination of Pippin’s work on Hegel and German idealism, this is a book that no Hegel scholar or historian of philosophy will want to miss.

Reclaiming the Wilderness
Reclaiming the Wilderness

Author: Sébastien Billioud

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-07-13

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0197529143

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A syncretistic and millenarian religious movement, the Yiguandao (Way of Pervading Unity) was one of the major redemptive societies of Republican China. It developed extremely rapidly in the 1930s and the 1940s, attracting millions of members. Severely repressed after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, it managed to endure and redeploy elsewhere, especially in Taiwan. Today, it has become one of the largest and most influential religious movements in Asia and at the same time one of the least known and understood. From its powerful base in Taiwan, it has expanded worldwide, including in mainland China where it remains officially forbidden. Based on ethnographic work carried out over nearly a decade, Reclaiming the Wilderness offers an in-depth study of a Yiguandao community in Hong Kong that serves as a node of circulation between Taiwan, Macao, China and elsewhere. Sébastien Billioud explores the factors contributing to the expansionary dynamics of the group: the way adepts live and confirm their faith; the importance of charismatic leadership; the role of Confucianism, which makes it possible to defuse tensions with Chinese authorities and sometimes even to cooperate with them; and, finally, the well-structured expansionary strategies of the Yiguandao and its quasi-diplomatic efforts to navigate the troubled waters of cross-straits politics.

A Philosophical Novelist
A Philosophical Novelist

Author: Henry Tompkins Kirby-Smith

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780809321131

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the preface to the second edition of The Last Puritan, George Santayana wrote that he saw this "memoir in the form of a novel" as an exemplification of his own spirit. H. T. Kirby-Smith uses Santayana's 1936 novel The Last Puritan as both an occasion and a means for bringing into focus the complex relations between Santayana's life, his personality, and his philosophy.

John Lachs's Practical Philosophy
John Lachs's Practical Philosophy

Author: Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-07-10

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 9004367640

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

John Lachs (1934-) has been one of the most interesting American philosophers for nearly sixty years. His philosophical, educational, and public activity has been an attempt to show the relevance of philosophy to life. This is the first book dedicated to his thought. International scholars have proposed different themes in Lachs’ philosophy, so as to present its enormous potential. Lachs’ responses to his critics shows that dialogue with his critics is an inspirational activity for both sides. Lachs’ way of philosophizing can be seen as exemplary for those who want to unify and present a clear and understandable articulation of moral and philosophical messages to everyone.

American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia
American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia

Author: John Lachs

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-03-31

Total Pages: 870

ISBN-13: 1135948879

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Encyclopedia of American Philosophy provides coverage of the major figures, concepts, historical periods and traditions in American philosophical thought. Containing over 600 entries written by scholars who are experts in the field, this Encyclopedia is the first of its kind. It is a scholarly reference work that is accessible to the ordinary reader by explaining complex ideas in simple terms and providing ample cross-references to facilitate further study. The Encyclopedia of American Philosophy contains a thorough analytical index and will serve as a standard, comprehensive reference work for universities and colleges. Topics covered include: Great philosophers: Emerson, Dewey, James, Royce, Peirce, Santayana Subjects: Pragmatism, Progress, the Future, Knowledge, Democracy, Growth, Truth Influences on American Philosophy: Hegel, Aristotle, Plato, British Enlightenment, Reformation Self-Assessments: Joe Margolis, Donald Davidson, Susan Haack, Peter Hare, John McDermott, Stanley Cavell Ethics: Value, Pleasure, Happiness, Duty, Judgment, Growth Political Philosophy: Declaration of Independence, Democracy, Freedom, Liberalism, Community, Identity

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Author: Gabor Maté, MD

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2011-06-28

Total Pages: 522

ISBN-13: 1583944206

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A “thought-provoking and powerful” study that reframes everything you’ve been taught about addiction and recovery—from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Myth of Normal (Bruce Perry, author of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog). A world-renowned trauma expert combines real-life stories with cutting-edge research to offer a holistic approach to understanding addiction—its origins, its place in society, and the importance of self-compassion in recovery. Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with people with addiction on Vancouver’s skid row, this #1 international bestseller radically re-envisions a much misunderstood condition by taking a compassionate approach to substance abuse and addiction recovery. In the same vein as Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts traces the root causes of addiction to childhood trauma and examines the pervasiveness of addiction in society. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout—and perhaps underpins—our society. It is not a medical “condition” distinct from the lives it affects but rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs and behaviors of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness. Dr. Maté argues persuasively against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and how they perpetuate the War on Drugs. The mix of personal stories—including the author’s candid discussion of his own “high-status” addictive tendencies—and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.

Mind and Cosmos
Mind and Cosmos

Author: Thomas Nagel

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-11-22

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 0199919755

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.

Inside a Magical Lodge
Inside a Magical Lodge

Author: John Michael Greer

Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9781567183146

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The author of "Circles of Power" and "Paths of Wisdom", presents the lodge system as a coherent whole, showing, in immediate and practical terms, how one can put it to work . 21 line drawings.