Philosophy Books

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore,...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore,...

The book explores the characteristic features and political consequences of social interaction when the parties' intentions are transparent, and when they are opaque. The author develops a theory of association and uses it to elucidate, assess and extend...

This book provides the first critical assessment of important recent developments in Anglo-American liberal theorizing about limited government. Following a comparative study of canonical liberal philosophers Hayek and Rawls, the book reveals a new...

This book examines liberal theory's attempts to accommodate pluralism, asking two fundamental questions: 1. How and why have theorists based their defences and proposed revisions of liberal pluralism upon particular and contestable definitions of what is...

Martin Wight (1913-1972) was one of the most original and enigmatic international thinkers of the twentieth century. This new study, drawing upon Wright's published writings and unpublished papers, examines his work on international relations in the...

Challenging the received notions of International Relations theory about a central tradition - Realism - Molloy demonstrates how a belief in a mode of theorization has distorted Realism, forcing the theory of power politics in IR into a paradigmatic...

Bringing together research on the situational determinants of risk propensity and on individual personality predispositions, Boettcher draws on findings from political science, psychology, economics, business, and sociology to develop a Risk Explanation...

This book recovers and recommends the core conviction of Victorian liberal theory that human beings, with the help of the state, can achieve an objective moral perfection. The first half of the book considers the diverse modern biases that have blinded...

One of Max Weber's contemporaries described him as 'a child of the Enlightenment born too late' whose work is a 'vitriolic attack on religion'. Subsequent Weber scholarship has largely affirmed this valuation of Weber and characterized his scholarship as...

This book provides a critical analysis of the liberal ideas of the decline of the state through a historical comparison. It takes special note of the implications of state failure to control economic growth and market exigencies for international...

While sovereignty is increasingly contested within academic circles, most recent military conflicts have been over issues of sovereignty in some form. Focusing on Yugoslavia in the 1990s, this book explores the issues surrounding 'sovereignty' and calls...

This book investigates the role Nietzsche's dance images play in his project of "revaluing all values" alongside the religious rhetoric and subject matter evident in the work of Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, who found justification and guidance in...

In the spirit of communitarianism and dialogue between civilizations, this ambitious book seeks a political philosophy where a diversity of world-views can meet. The main objective of the book is to propose a theoretical basis for convergence and to...

Resisting Ethics is a new contribution to an ongoing debate on how the world can be improved. Starting with the notion that resistance and ethics are theoretically and practically intertwined, Schaffer develops a new socially oriented ethics based on the...

Based on the ongoing work of the agenda-setting Future of Minority Studies national research project, Identity Politics Reconsidered reconceptualizes the scholarly and political significance of social identity. It focuses on the deployment of 'identity'...

The strategic use of referendums by leaders often confers legitimacy but it may also reflect the power struggle between leaders, groups, and institutions and in doing so not provide a democratic result for the citizenry of a country.

Fictive Theories is a significant and innovative intervention in key debates in political theory concerning the ways theory should be philosophically grounded, and the task that political theory should set itself. Susan McManus argues that political...

Current discussions of liberalism in world affairs tend to take a shortsighted view of the historical antecedents of the school of thought. Most jump directly from Kant to Wilson with little pause in between. In this book, Clinton has selected three...

The authors examine the relationship between social science and philosophy and ask what sort of work social science and an accompanying philosophy should do. They reintroduce the question of ontology, through the work of Roy Bhaskar. The book argues...

Arguing for an evolutionary perspective, this book directly challenges the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) on which public policy has often been based. The SSSM maintains that human behavior is solely the product of culture and learning. In sharp...

This book outlines an idea of world politics as an activity of thinking and speaking about the conditions of world order. World order is understood not as an arrangement of entities but a complex of variously situated activities conducted by individuals...

This provocative and critical work addresses the question of why scientific realists and positivists consider experimental physics to be a natural and empirical science. Taking insights from contemporary science studies, continental philosophy, and the...

This book charts and challenges the bruising impact of post-Saussurean thought on the categories of experience and self-presence. It attempts a reappropriation of the category of lived experience in dialogue with poststructuralist thinking. Following the...

Between Cosmopolitan Ideals and State Sovereignty explores how philosophers and political theorists have recast principles of justice and human rights in the light of challenges posed by globalization. It discusses ethical issues that arise at a global...

If we want to be autonomous, what do we want? The author shows that contemporary value-neutral and metaphysically economical conceptions of autonomy, such as that of Harry Frankfurt, face a serious problem. Drawing on Plato, Augustine, and Kant, this...

Scientific and historical studies in the Nineteenth-century challenged Christian believers to restate their faith in ways which took account of new knowledge. An example of this is the influence of philosophical idealism on a generation of writers and...

In this book, Richard Amesbury brings recent developments in Anglo-American philosophy into engagement with dominant currents in contemporary European social theory in order to articulate a pragmatic account of moral criticism. Presented in a lively and...

Marxism After Modernity is concerned with the ways in which Marxist theory has responded to the major social, economic and technological transformations of capitalism which have occurred in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Being a subject and being conscious of being one are different realities. According to Hegel, the difference is not only conceptual, but also influences people's experience of the world and of one another. This book aims to explain some basic aspects of...

This work considers how Frenchwomen participated in Christian religious practice during the sixteenth century, with their words and their actions. Using extensive original and archival sources, it provides a comprehensive study of how women contributed...

Are religions tissues of superstition and repression, or repositories of the highest hopes and aspirations of humanity, or perhaps both at the same time? For many of those thinkers who lived through the horrors and upheavals of the first half of the...

The Force of Reason and the Logic of Force investigates the concept of force through various 'episodes' in the history of philosophy. The author argues that force arises on the basis of the distinction of reality and mere appearance. The book looks at...

Farrelly argues against the principled paradigm of ideal theory and champions instead a virtue-oriented theory of justice entitled 'civic liberalism'. He critically assesses the main contemporary theories of justice and tackles a number of applied...

If the tragic interpretation of experience is still so current, despite its disastrous ethical consequences, it is because it shapes our subjectivity. Instead of contradicting the ideals of autonomy and freedom, a modern subjectivity based on...

Iyer argues for the transformative potential for philosophy and political practice of the thought of Maurice Blanchot. The book traces Blanchot's complex negotiations of the thought of Hegel, Heidegger, Bataille and Levinas, which allowed him to develop...

Norris presents a series of closely linked chapters on recent developments in epistemology, philosophy of language, cognitive science, literary theory, musicology and other related fields. While to this extent adopting an interdisciplinary approach,...

In this fascinating study, Peter Johnson makes explicit the issues involved in using the novel as a source in moral philosophy. The book pays close attention to questions of method, aesthetic accounts of the novel and the nature of ethical knowledge. The...

Under the conditions of economic globalization, the prevailing liberal philosophy of governance is becoming increasingly problematic. Liberty Beyond Neo-Liberalism critiques three varieties of liberal engagement with the processes of globalization and...

This book examines the issue of philosophical skepticism in the light of its relevance for the critique of modernity associated with the Frankfurt School. It situates the problem of skepticism in the context of the history of philosophy and explores its...

This book brings feminist philosophy, in the shape of feminist ethics, politics and legal theory, to an analysis of computer ethics problems including hacking, privacy, surveillance, cyberstalking and Internet dating. Adam claims that these issues cannot...

Applying multimodal textual analysis to the languages and images of on-line communication forms, Kay Richardson shows, from an applied linguistic perspective, how the Internet is being used for global, interactive communication about public health risks...

Raia Prokhovnik develops a strong argument for sovereignty as a robust concept with many conceptualizations, and capable of further fruitful reconceptualization. The book explores contemporary theoretical developments and current political issues around...

In this original study, Keith Crome argues for the importance of Lyotard's analyzes of sophistry. In the first section, the author examines the accounts of sophistry given in the works of Plato, Hegel and Heidegger. Sensitive to the important differences...

In the field of epistemology, naturalism holds that there are no a priori norms for guiding our belief-formation: we must start our inquiries in situ , assuming some beliefs and the general reliability of our basic cognitive practices to justify others...

The Aesthetics of Free Speech: Rethinking the Public Sphere is one of the first books to theoretically explore the relationship between free speech and the public sphere. By drawing upon Marxist theory the author, John Michael Roberts, demonstrates how...

In this book, leading scholars from East Asia and beyond debate Michael Oakeshott's views on liberal democracy and totalitarianism and their implications for East Asia today. His ideas on rationality in politics, the nature of liberal democracy, and how...