Download or read book St Anselm s Proslogion written by Saint Anselm and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 1979-07-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Proslogion, St. Anselm presents a philosophical argument for the existence of God. Anselm's proof, known since the time of Kant as the ontological argument for the existence of God, has played an important role in the history of philosophy and has been incorporated in various forms into the systems of Descartes, Leibniz, Hegel, and others. Included in this edition of the Proslogion are Gaunilo's "A Reply on Behalf of the Fool" and St. Anselm's "The Author's Reply to Gaunilo." All three works are in the original Latin with English translation on facing pages. Professor Charlesworth's introduction provides a helpful discussion of the context of the Proslogion in the theological tradition and in Anselm's own thought and writing.

Download or read book Descartes on the Human Soul written by C.F. Fowler and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author's aim of providing an understanding of the development, content and presentation of two aspects of Descartes' philosophy of the human soul - immortality and body-soul union - has been achieved and executed with rigour, scholarship and philosophical acuity. Fowler combines close textual analysis with a consideration of the philosophical arguments and the theological background against which these arguments were developed. This contextual approach enables him to provide new insights into the nature of Descartes' philosophy, and indeed of early modern philosophy more generally. Despite the massive scholarly documentation, this finely structured and clearly written study is eminently readable. The work is a significant contribution to the world of Cartesian scholarship which professors and graduate students of Descartes, as well as the world's libraries, must have.

Download or read book The History of Scepticism written by Richard Henry Popkin and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents

Download or read book Edith Stein Letters to Roman Ingarden written by Edith Stein and published by ICS Publications. This book was released on 2014-12-14 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edith Stein and Roman Ingarden, both students of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, corresponded extensively between 1917 and 1938. These 162 letters, most published here for the first time, reveal a friendship that spanned the adult lives of these two important 20th-century thinkers. Through Stein’s letters, the reader can follow her through her student days, her conversion from Judaism to Catholicism, her professional life, and her decision to become a Carmelite nun in the Carmel of Cologne, where she took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. The letters end in 1938, when the Nazi threat escalating throughout Eastern Europe made correspondence difficult, especially across national borders. Four years later Edith Stein was arrested in the Netherlands by the Nazi SS, transported to Auschwitz, and was killed in the gas chambers. Roman Ingarden survived World War II, continued his academic work in Poland, and died in 1970. Although Ingarden’s letters to her have not been found, Stein’s to him also help us understand the life of this Polish phenomenologist and aesthetician, his life in Poland, his intellectual development, his own writings and academic career, and the editorial assistance Stein provided for all of the works he published in German. Translated from the newest critical German edition by Dr. Hugh Candler Hunt, this premiere English edition of her correspondence—volume 12 of ICS Publications’ Collected Works of Edith Stein—gives us a fascinating and intimate window into Edith Stein’s rich life and personality, revealing her warmth and humor, deep capacity for friendship, and remarkable intellectual and spiritual depth.

Download or read book Hypotheses and Perspectives in the History and Philosophy of Science written by Raffaele Pisano and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-23 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To commemorate the 50th anniversary of his passing (in 2014), this special book features studies on Alexandre Koyré (1892–1964), one of the most influential historians of science of the 20th century, who re-evaluated prevalent thinking on the history and philosophy of science. In particular, it explores Koyré’s intellectual matrix and heritage within interdisciplinary fields of historical, epistemological and philosophical scientific thought. Koyré is rightly noted as both a versatile historian on the birth and development of modern science and for his interest in philosophical questions on the nature of scientific knowledge. In the 1940s and 1950s his activities in the United States established a crucial bridge between the European historical tradition of science studies and the American academic environments, and an entire generation of historians of science grew up under his direct influence. The book brings together contributions from leading experts in the field, and offers much-needed insights into the subject from historical, nature of science, and philosophical perspectives. It provides an absorbing and revealing read for historians, philosophers and scientists alike.

Download or read book Descartes on Innate Ideas written by Deborah A. Boyle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-10-20 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of innateness is central to Descartes' epistemology; the Meditations display a new, non-Aristotelian method of acquiring knowledge by attending properly to our innate ideas. Yet understanding Descartes's conception of innate ideas is not an easy task and some commentators have concluded that Descartes held several distinct and unrelated conceptions of innateness. In Descartes on Innate Ideas, however, Deborah Boyle argues that Descartes's remarks on innate ideas in fact form a unified account. Addressing the further question of how Descartes thinks innate ideas are known, the author shows that for Descartes, thinkers have implicit knowledge of their innate ideas. Thus she shows that the actual perception of these innate ideas is, for Descartes, a matter of making them explicit, turning the intellect away from sense-perceptions and towards pure thought. The author also provides a new interpretation of the Cartesian 'natural light', an important mental faculty in Descartes' epistemology.

Download or read book Spinoza Metaphysics and the Possibility of Salvation written by Olli Koistinen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-22 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a novel interpretation of Spinoza’s basic metaphysics of God, body, and mind. It considers the fundamental question of how finite things, especially human minds, are in God. Moreover, because for Spinoza God is identical with the universe, the question becomes how finite things are in the universe. This book shows that for Spinoza finite things are closer to God than what is thought in most contemporary Spinoza studies. It claims that the essences of finite things are degrees or, in a very specific sense of the term “part,” parts of the infinite essence of God. This book also shows how Spinoza’s basic metaphysics attempts to give us the possibility to unite with God so that we can share some of God’s perspective with the world. This new knowledge, Spinoza claims, provides the mind with eternity and a kind of individual salvation that is deeply meaningful. This book is not only a study of Spinoza’s basic concepts, but it also takes seriously what kind of epistemic attitude is required for experiencing the world truly. It is difficult to see and experience oneself in Spinoza’s monistic system where God is the only existing substance. This book offers a novel and engaging interpretation of the Ethics that takes seriously the ontological experience of Spinoza’s philosophy. Spinoza, Metaphysics, and the Possibility of Salvation is an essential resource for scholars and graduate students working on Spinoza, early modern philosophy, and metaphysics.

Download or read book Spinoza written by Barry S. Kogan and published by Hebrew Union College Press. This book was released on 1979-12-31 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By common consensus Spinoza was one of the most rigorous and original thinkers in the entire history of Western philosophy. Not only did he lay the theoretical foundations for the scientific study of the Bible and the rise of the modern liberal state, he also developed a philosophic system so comprehensive and integrated in design that it has exercised the critical faculties and religious sensibilities of reflective people ever since. But there the consensus ends. For in the three centuries since his death, Spinoza has been viewed under a remarkably wide array of perspectives. In view of his significant place in Jewish history, his influence on generations of young Jews struggling to come to terms with science and modernity, and of course his tremendous contribution to Western thought, it was natural for the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to observe the 300th anniversary of Spinoza's death. But as a seat of liberal Judaism in the modern world, the College also has a special relation to Spinoza and his enterprise. It is an heir to what we may call his positive vision. For wherever freedom of inquiry exists to encourage the critical study of the Bible and Israel's past in conjunction with reasoned reflection about God, man, and the natural world, Spinoza's legacy remains alive. In order to examine that legacy properly, HUC-JIR organized a symposium to discuss Spinoza from a tercentenary perspective, and the proceedings of that symposium are published here. The volume includes "Spinoza: A Three Hundred Year Perspective" by Alfred Gottschalk, "Spinoza's Skepticism and Anti-Skepticism" by Richard H. Popkin, "Spinoza's Thought and Modern Perplexities: Its American Career" by Lewis S. Feuer, and "Spinoza on Man's Knowledge of God: Intuition, Reason, Revelation, and Love" by David Savan, as well as concluding remarks by Eugene Mihaly and an introduction by Barry S. Kogan.

Download or read book Physics and Metaphysics in Descartes and in his Reception written by Delphine Antoine-Mahut and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-14 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the relationship between physics and metaphysics in Descartes’ philosophy. According to the standard account, Descartes modified the objects of metaphysics and physics and inverted the order in which these two disciplines were traditionally studied. This book challenges the standard account in which Descartes prioritizes metaphysics over physics. It does so by taking into consideration the historical reception of Descartes and the ways in which Descartes himself reacted to these receptions in his own lifetime. The book stresses the diversity of these receptions by taking into account not only Cartesianisms but also anti-Cartesianisms, and by showing how they retroactively highlighted different aspects of Descartes’ works and theoretical choices. The historical aspect of the volume is unique in that it not only analyzes different constructions of Descartes that emerged in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, but also reflects on how his work was first read by philosophers across Europe. Taken together, the essays in this volume offer a fresh and up-to-date contribution to this important debate in early modern philosophy.

Download or read book The History of Scepticism From Savonarola to Bayle written by St. Louis (Emeritus) Richard H. Popkin Professor of Philosophy Washington University and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003-02-21 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the third edition of a classic book first published in 1960, which has sold thousands of copies in two paperback edition and has been translated into several foreign languages. Popkin's work has generated innumerable citations, and remains a valuable stimulus to current historical research. In this updated version, he has revised and expanded throughout, and has added three new chapters, one on Savonarola, one on Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, and one on Pascal. This authoritative treatment of the theme of scepticism and its historical impact will appeal to scholars and students of early modern history now as much as ever.

Download or read book Transparency in Postwar France written by Stefanos Geroulanos and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book returns to a time and place when the concept of transparency was met with deep suspicion. It offers a panorama of postwar French thought where attempts to show the perils of transparency in politics, ethics, and knowledge led to major conceptual inventions, many of which we now take for granted. Between 1945 and 1985, academics, artists, revolutionaries, and state functionaries spoke of transparency in pejorative terms. Associating it with the prying eyes of totalitarian governments, they undertook a critical project against it—in education, policing, social psychology, economic policy, and the management of information. Focusing on Sartre, Lacan, Canguilhem, Lévi-Strauss, Leroi-Gourhan, Foucault, Derrida, and others, Transparency in Postwar France explores the work of ethicists, who proposed that individuals are transparent neither to each other nor to themselves, and philosophers, who clamored for new epistemological foundations. These decades saw the emergence of the colonial and phenomenological "other," the transformation of ideas of normality, and the effort to overcome Enlightenment-era humanisms and violence in the name of freedom. These thinkers' innovations remain centerpieces for any resistance to contemporary illusions that tolerate or enable power and social coercion.

Download or read book Edith Stein Women Social Political Philosophy Theology Metaphysics and Public History written by Antonio Calcagno and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-11-11 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the work and thought of Edith Stein (1891–1942). It discusses in detail, and from new perspectives, the traditional areas of her thinking, including her ideas about women/feminism, theology, and metaphysics. In addition, it introduces readers to new and/or understudied areas of her thought, including her views on history, and her social and political philosophy. The guiding thread that connects all the essays in this book is the emphasis on new approaches and novel applications of her philosophy. The contributions both extend the interdisciplinary implications of Stein’s thinking for our contemporary world and apply her insights to questions of theatre, public history and biographical representation, education, politics, autism, theological debates, feminism, sexuality studies and literature. The volume brings together for the first time leading scholars in five language-groups, including English, German, Italian, French and Spanish-speaking authors, thereby reflecting an international and cosmopolitan approach to Stein studies.

Download or read book Contemporary French Philosophy written by A. Phillips Griffiths and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively and accessible guide to some of the majore issues current in French philosophy today.

Download or read book Kant God and Metaphysics written by Edward Kanterian and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kant is widely acknowledged as the greatest philosopher of modern times. He undertook his famous critical turn to save human freedom and morality from the challenge of determinism and materialism. Intertwined with his metaphysical interests, however, he also had theological commitments, which have received insufficient attention. He believed that man is a fallen creature and in need of ‘redemption’. He intended to provide a fortress protecting religious faith from the failure of rationalist metaphysics, from the atheistic strands of the Enlightenment, from the new mathematical science of nature, and from the dilemmas of Christian theology itself. Kant was an epistemologist, a philosopher of mind, a metaphysician of experience, an ethicist and a philosopher of religion. But all this was sustained by his religious faith. This book aims to recover the focal point and inner contradictions of his thought, the ‘secret thorn’ of his metaphysics (as Heidegger once put it). It first locates Kant in the tradition of reflection on the human weakness from Luther to Hume, and then engages in a critical, but charitable, manner with Kant’s entire pre-critical work, including his posthumous fragments. Special attention is given to The Only Possible Ground (1763), one of the most difficult, interesting and underestimated of Kant’s works. The present book takes its cue from an older approach to Kant, but also engages with recent Anglophone and continental scholarship, and deploys modern analytical tools to make sense of Kant. What emerges is an innovative and thought-provoking interpretation of Kant’s metaphysics, set against the background of forgotten religious aspects of European philosophy.

Download or read book Civilization and the Culture of Science written by Stephen Gaukroger and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-19 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did science come to have such a central place in Western culture? How did cognitive values—and subsequently moral, political, and social ones—come to be modelled around scientific values? In Civilization and the Culture of Science, Stephen Gaukroger explores how these values were shaped and how they began, in turn, to shape those of society. The core nineteenth- and twentieth-century development is that in which science comes to take centre stage in determining ideas of civilization, displacing Christianity in this role. Christianity had provided a unifying thread in the study of the world, however, and science had to match this, which it did through the project of the unity of the sciences. The standing of science came to rest or fall on this question, which the book sets out to show in detail is essentially ideological, not something that arose from developments within the sciences, which remained pluralistic and modular. A crucial ingredient in this process was a fundamental rethinking of the relations between science and ethics, economics, philosophy, and engineering. In his engaging description of this transition to a scientific modernity, Gaukroger examines five of the issues which underpinned this shift in detail: changes in the understanding of civilization; the push to unify the sciences; the rise of the idea of the limits of scientific understanding; the concepts of 'applied' and 'popular' science; and the way in which the public was shaped in a scientific image.

Download or read book The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza written by Richard H. Popkin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-09-01 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I had read the book before in the shorter Harper Torchbook edition but read it again right through--and found it as interesting and exciting as before. I regard it as one of the seminal books in the history of ideas. Based on a prodigious amount of original research, it demonstrated conclusively and in fascinating details how the transmission of ancient skepticism was a bital factor in the formation of modern thought. The story is rich in implications for th history of philosophy, the history of science, and the history of religious thought. Popkin's work has already inspired further work by others--and the new edition takes account of this, most importantly the work of Charles Schmitt. The two new chapters extend the story as far as Spinoza, with special reference to the beginnings of biblical criticism. . . . Popkin's history is of great potential interest to a wide readership--wider than most specialist publications and wider than it has (so far as I can tell) reached hitherto."--M.F. Burnyeat, Professor of Philosophy, University College London

Download or read book The A to Z of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy written by Roger Ariew and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2010-04-06 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The A to Z of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy includes many entries on Descartes's writings, concepts, and findings. Since it is historical, there are other entries on those who supported him, those who criticized him, those who corrected him, and those who together formed one of the major movements in philosophy, Cartesianism. To better understand the period, the authors drew up a brief chronology, and to see how Descartes and Cartesianism fit into the general picture, they have written an introduction and a biography. Since everything cannot be summed up in one volume, a bibliography directs readers to numerous other sources on issues of particular interest.