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Frankenstein and Philosophy
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus sparked into life a fascination with science-gone-awry that refuses to die. From 1818 to present-day Hollywood, the story of Victor Frankenstein and his reanimated, stitched-together corpse has inspired (some would say) the very idea of modern science fiction and countless essays, movies, novels, songs, comic-books, and TV shows aiming to capture what was right, wrong, abominable, inevitable, scary, or funny in this classic tale. Can organic life be reanimated using electricity or genetic manipulation? If so, could Frankenstein’s monster really teach itself to read and speak as Mary Shelley imagined? Do monsters have rights, or res...
A Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Modality
A Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Modality examines the eight main contemporary theories of possibility behind a central metaphysical topic. Covering modal skepticism, modal expressivism, modalism, modal realism, ersatzism, modal fictionalism, modal agnosticism, and the new modal actualism, this comprehensive introduction to modality places contemporary debates in an historical context. Beginning with a historical overview, Andrea Borghini discusses Parmenides and Zeno; looks at how central Medieval authors such as Aquinas, and Buridan prepared the ground for the Early Modern radical views of Leibniz, Spinoza, and Hume and discusses advancements in semantics in the later-half of ...
Towards a Theory of Development
Is it possible to explain and predict the development of living things? What is development? Articulate answers to these seemingly innocuous questions are far from straightforward. To date, no systematic, targeted effort has been made to construct a unifying theory of development. This novel work offers a unique exploration of the foundations of ontogeny by asking how the development of living things should be understood. It explores the key concepts of developmental biology, asks whether general principles of development can be discovered, and examines the role of models and theories. The two editors (one a biologist with long interest in the theoretical aspects of his discipline, the other...
Manifesto of New Realism
Philosophical realism has taken a number of different forms, each applied to different topics and set against different forms of idealism and subjectivism. Maurizio Ferraris's Manifesto of New Realism takes aim at postmodernism and hermeneutics, arguing against their emphasis on reality as constructed and interpreted. While acknowledging the value of these criticisms of traditional, dogmatic realism, Ferraris insists that the insights of postmodernism have reached a dead end. Calling for the discipline to turn its focus back to truth and the external world, Ferraris's manifesto—which sparked lively debate in Italy and beyond—offers a wiser realism with social and political relevance.
The Philosophy of Geography
The relationship between geography and philosophy is still largely in need of being explored. Geographers and philosophers share the responsibility for that. On the one hand, geographers have considered as a dangerous deviation any attempt to elaborate an image of the Earth which was not a mere replica of a cartographic representation. On the other hand, philosophers have generally been uninterested in a discipline offering little chance for critical reflection. In light of these considerations, the purpose of this book is to identify some fundamental philosophical issues involved in the reflection of geography by adopting a perspective which looks at the discipline with a specific focus on its fundamental concepts and distinctions.
Gastrospaces
This book explores the moral and political significance of gastrospaces: the spaces where we eat. It adopts an innovative approach, combining analytic political philosophy and analytic ontology, to lay down the theoretical foundations for a multi- and interdisciplinary research agenda on the complex interconnections between food and space. Social science and humanities scholars have studied the ties between food consumption and space from multiple angles. This book sets up a different and more foundational approach, which engages with these bodies of work and integrates them into a coherent framework. While taking the reader through a theoretical journey of varying complexities, the book als...
Philosophy as Metaphysics
What makes philosophy metaphysical? Understood as the search for truth, philosophy has led those seeking it to the question of Being, says Gunter Figal. He shows that because this devotion to truth and Being are the heart of metaphysics, it is what makes up philosophy's metaphysical character. Figal embraces this, and, leaving arguments for simple affirmation aside, offers instead a critical discussion of the positions adopted by metaphysical philosophy's founding fathers, Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle. Alongside a phenomenological transformation of the latter's ontology, Figal also sets out why he regards metaphysics as just one philosophical perspective among others, and not as a dominating `first philosophy?. The outcome is philosophy as a de-centered, non-hierarchical and liberating project.
Critique of Pure Nature
This book challenges the Western contemporary “praise for Nature”. From food to body practices, from ecological discourses to the Covid-19 pandemic, contemporary imaginaries abound with representations of an ideal “pure Nature”, essentially defined according to a logic of denial of any artificial, modified, manipulated — in short, cultural — aspect. How should we contextualise and understand such an opposition, especially in light of the rich semantic scope of the term “nature” and its variability over time? And how can we — if we actually can — envisage alternative models and approaches capable of better accounting for such richness and variability? The author addresses ...
History of Philosophy and the Reflective Society
This book is about innovation, reflection and inclusion. Cultural innovation is something real that tops up social and technological innovation by providing the reflective society with spaces of exchange in which citizens engage in the process of sharing their experiences while appropriating common goods content. We are talking of public spaces such as universities, academies, libraries, museums, science-centres, but also of any place in which co-creation activities may occur. The argument starts with the need for new narratives in the history of philosophy, which can be established through co-creation, the motor of cultural innovation. The result is redefining the history of philosophy in terms of a dialogical civilization by ensuring continuous translations, individual processes of reflection and collective processes of inclusion. Readers will grasp the effectiveness of the history of philosophy in societies that are inclusive, innovative and reflective.
