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This is the first volume devoted exclusively to the practical philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars. It features original essays by leading Sellars scholars that examine his ethical theory, his theory of practical reasoning, and his theory of intentional agency. While most scholarship on Sellars’s philosophy has focused on his epistemology, metaphysics, or philosophy of language and mind, Sellars himself regarded his practical philosophy as central to his overall project of situating rational beings within the natural order. The chapters in this volume address this neglected area of Sellars’s philosophy. The chapters are divided into thematic sections covering Sellars’s theory of we-intentions...
Christopher Hookway has been influential in promoting engagement with pragmatist and naturalist perspectives from classical and contemporary American philosophy. This book reflects on Hookway’s work on the American philosophical tradition and its significance for contemporary discussions of the understanding of mind, meaning, knowledge, and value. Hookway’s original and extensive studies of Charles S. Peirce have made him among the most admired and frequently referenced of Peirce’s interpreters. His work on classical American pragmatism has explored the philosophies of William James, John Dewey, and Josiah Royce, and examined the influence of pragmatist ideas outside of the United Stat...
Speculative realism challenges philosophical approaches and traditions for supposedly failing to do justice to the real world. Taking this realist challenge seriously, Continental Realism and Its Discontents refuses to discard the philosophical contributions of Kant, Schelling, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and Nancy without closer scrutiny. Instead, the contributors turn to these thinkers to meet the challenge of realism in contemporary philosophy.
This book provides an original perspective on the debate about anti-representationalism and the nature of philosophy. This debate has come to prominence in recent years through the work of people like Richard Rorty, Paul Horwich, Huw Price and Amie Thomasson. It is the first book to explicitly consider this well-known pragmatist kind of anti-representationalism in relation to anti-representationalist views in other areas of philosophy, in particular the philosophy of perception and cognitive science. Taking as its point of departure the neo-pragmatism of Rorty and Price, it critiques the way these (and other) thinkers develop, on this basis, a positive view of philosophy and its remit. By ex...
This volume provides a geographically and historically diverse overview of philosophical traditions that establish a deep connection between truth and practice, or even see truth itself as a kind of practice. Under the label “practices of truth” are subsumed disparate approaches that can be fruitfully brought together to explore the intersections between truth and practice in philosophy as well as to address a range of intriguing questions about truth that fall outside the domain of pure theory. The chapters in this volume provide a variety of perspectives on key practices of truth in philosophy and in the history of philosophy, enriching our understanding of the different ways in which truth and practice may be connected, including the role of certain practices in enabling philosophical insight into truth, the ways in which truth may actually be embedded in some practices, and the impact of truth on practice. Practices of Truth in Philosophy will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in the history of philosophy, comparative philosophy, ethics, epistemology, and the metaphysics of truth.
This book offers a compelling new interpretation of James’ moral philosophy: an "ethics of responsible self-fashioning." James’ performative writing style articulates this conception by showing how moral inquiry serves both social and personal transformation. James the social moral philosopher seeks to create an inclusive moral order through expansion of sympathetic concern among those committed to different ideals. James the existential moral philosopher defends the right to adopt hope-grounding metaphysical beliefs which encourage strenuous moral action in the face of evil and suffering. The power of James’ ethics is demonstrated by its application to current discussions about the status of marginalized nonhuman animals and that of the cognitively disabled. William James and the Moral Life is of interest to a wide variety of ethicists and has special appeal to scholars and advanced students in moral philosophy, social philosophy, pragmatism, and American philosophy.
This book reconsiders pragmatist conceptions of democratic education, especially those of John Dewey. It addresses what democratic education can mean in the face of current threats that are undermining democracy. Since the mid-twentieth century, liberal philosophers have been skeptical of fostering values through public education. Since liberal democracy must embrace different worldviews, education, especially public education, must refrain from teaching values as much as possible. Given the recent undermining of democratic nation-states and their liberal foundations, this educational abstinence can be interpreted as one of the drivers of the current crisis of democracy. This book sketches h...
Surveys various aspects of sociology, including gender and the family, social inequaltiy, racism, welfare, and crime, from the viewpoint of sociological research and how it influences the perspective of sociologists.
This volume explores the connections between John McDowell’s philosophy and the hermeneutic tradition. The contributions not only explore the hermeneutical aspects of McDowell’s thought but also ask how this reading of McDowell can inform the hermeneutical tradition itself. John McDowell has made important contributions to debates in epistemology, metaethics, and philosophy of language, and his readings of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein have proved widely infl uential. While there are instances in which McDowell draws upon the work of hermeneutic thinkers, the hermeneutic strand of McDowell’s philosophy has not yet been systematically explored in depth. The chapters in this v...
Medical Technology and the Social: How Medical Technology is Impacting Social relations, Institutions, and Beliefs about what is Normal explores the intersection of society and medical technology to examine how medical technology impacts our day-to-day lives. The contributors examine a variety of technologies and their impact on the social world, from older technologies such as the use of fax machines in hospitals to cutting-edge technologies such as Bluetooth-enabled smart pills. Underlying each chapter is a consideration of what is “normal”, investigating such themes as power and social control, diffusion of technology, eco-crip theory, the changing role of medical expertise, the embodiment of the fetus in utero, the history of prosthetics, and how technology has reformed conceptions of a “normal” body.