Philosophy: epistemology and theory of knowledge Books

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Book SynopsisThis work studies hope as a phenomenon that both reveals and belongs to our status of being human. To understand that status, we must understand what it means to hope, which profoundly surpasses both psychological wish or desire and the “merely religious” belief in salvation. The author looks at hope in all its concrete manifestation: He examines works of art, some of which depict hope in unflattering terms as delusional, while others see it as dangerous and elusive; he examines false hope as that which confuses intensity of desire for a specific boon as an actual cause of the boon; he points to the metaphors of hope (light and darkness as congruents of revealing/concealing; or the two forms of light itself: illumination, or hope for, vs. radiation, or hope in (to trust).

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Book SynopsisAddresses pain in many forms, including the pain inflicted by torture; the pain suffered in disease; and the pain of anxiety, grief and depression. The author examines the dual nature of pain: how we attempt to avoid it as much as possible in our daily lives and yet, conversely, obtain a thrill from seeking it.

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Book SynopsisTo Think Like God focuses on the emergence of philosophy as a speculative science, tracing its origins to the Greek colonies of Southern Italy, from the late 6th century to mid-5th century B.C.E. Special attention is paid to the sage Pythagoras and his movement, the poet Xenophanes of Colophon, and the lawmaker Parmenides of Elea. In their own ways, each thinker held that true insight, whether as wisdom or certainty, belonged not to mortal human beings but to the gods.The Pythagoreans sought to approach this otherworldly knowledge by studying numerical relationships, believing them to govern the universe, and that those who know the number of a thing know its true nature. Yet their quest was a hopeless one, bogged down by cultism, numerology, political conspiracies, bloody uprisings, and exile. Above all, number did not turn out as the most reliable of mediums; it was certainly not a key to the realm of the divine. Thus, their contributions to philosophy's inception, while much better publicized, were not the most significant. That particular role was reserved for an unusual challenge and the elaborate reaction it provoked.The challenge came from Xenophanes, who had argued that reliable truth was beyond mortal reach, because even if by accident a human being should state what is exactly the case, he had no way of knowing that he did, all things being susceptible to opinion. This dilemma is sure to have bothered a legislative mind like that of Parmenides, and we find him introducing techniques for testing the veracity of statements. These methods were meant to be carried out by reasoning and argument alone, without relying on physical evidence or mortal sense-perception, which was deemed untrustworthy. Reason was that one faculty shared by gods and humans alike.In time, Parmenides' ingenious arguments have earned him the title of the first logician and metaphysician whose influence on subsequent thinkers was immeasurable. Parmenides taught us that philosophy was not about claims but about proof, which also makes him the father of theoretical science—which, curiously, began as a quest into the mind of God.Trade ReviewThis is a fresh and stimulating study of the father of Eleaticism – and it would be interesting to see whether this construction of Parmenides could be made to work as a reaction to the modes of thought implicit in the cosmologies of his Ionic predecessors"". - Cambridge Journals

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Book SynopsisThis book is a collection of dovetailing essays which together interpret and assess the chief arguments and texts which make up Plato’s cosmology. Arguments in the Timaeus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, and Laws X are analyzed with an eye to problems which affect the wider understanding of Plato’s metaphysics, theology, epistemology, psychology, and physics. New interpretations are given to Plato’s views on the role and characteristics of his craftsman God, the nature and status of Forms, the nature of time and eternity, the status and nature of space and the phenomenal realm, and the nature of and relations between reason, souls, bodies, and motion.The book is critically sympathetic to the Platonic project, at least to the extent that it argues that many (though not all) features of the Platonic cosmology are more intelligible and coherent than usually supposed by critics. It defends the view that for Plato God makes the world in the way that a carpenter cuts a board to be exactly a yard long – by applying a yard stick to the board and removing the excess wood. This view of a making requires that there be standards or measures that exist independently both of the agent who creates and the world on which he works. These standards are Plato’s Forms. Transcendent Forms cannot be excised from the Platonic metaphysics as many modern critics have been trying to do in an attempt to make Plato respectable by today’s criteria of philosophical decency.This work presents a revised and updated edition of the author's 1985 book The Platonic Cosmology (E.J. Brill, Leiden) together with four revised and updated essays by the author on Plato's metaphysics, and a wholly new essay, ""Extensions,"" which expands the themes of the book into wider philosophical contexts.Trade ReviewMohr's collection of essays has remained over the years one of the standard reference books for Timaeus . . . . [he] was and remains right to insist on the importance of Timaeus to a number of central Platonic issues. . . I continue to applaud his insistence that we take Timaeus literally"". - Heythrop Journal

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Book SynopsisThe Sophist sets out to explain what the sophist does by defining his art. But the sophist has no art. Plato lays out a challenging puzzle in metaphysics, the nature of philosophy, and the limitation of philosophy that is unraveled in this new and unconventional interpretation.Here is a new translation of this important late Platonic dialogue, with a comprehensive commentary that reverses the dominant trends in the scholarship of the last fifty years. The Sophist is shown to be not a dry exposition of doctrine, but a rich exercise in dialectic, which reveals both the Eleatic roots of Platonic metaphysics and Plato’s criticism of unrevised Eleaticism as a theoretical underpinning for sophistry.The Sophist is presented now not as an artefact of the intellectual past or precursor of late 20th century philosophical theories, but as living philosophy. In a new translation and interpretation, this late dialogue is shown to be a defense of not a departure from Plato’s metaphysics.The book is intended to provide a complete interpretation of Plato's Sophist as a whole. Central to the methodology adopted is the assumption that all elements of the dialogue to be understood must be understood in the context of the dialogue as a whole and in its relation to other works in the Platonic corpus.Three main points are argued: 1) the dialogue does not present a definitive or positive doctrine of the late Plato, but has the structure of a reductio ad absurdum; 2) the figure of the sophist is employed to critically examining the metaphysics of Parmenides. While acknowledging a core of metaphysical insight in Parmenides, the argument implies that, by failing to account for resemblance, Eleaticism implies an inadequate theory of relations, which makes impossible an adequate understanding of essence. Consequently, Eleaticism unrevised can be taken as the philosophical underpinning for the antithesis of philosophy, lending legitimacy to sophistry; 3) the criticism constitutes an indirect argument for Platonic metaphysics, which has roots in Eleaticism, that is, for the Theory of Forms.Trade Reviewthere are things to be grateful for in this book; above all, it is well argued and clearly written. And, just because of its difficulties, Sophist is studied less than many Platonic dialogues: it is good to have a new translation and a thought-provoking book-length commentary"". - Heythrop Journal

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Book SynopsisA distinguished Platonic scholar discusses the impact of the Greek discovery of the ""cosmos"" on man's perception of his place in the universe, describes the problems this posed, and interprets Plato's response to this discovery.Starting with the Presocratics, Vlastos describes the intellectual revolution that began with the cosmogonies of Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes in the sixth century B.C. and culminated a century later in the atomist system of Leucippus and Democritus. What united these men was that for all of them nature remained the inviolate, all-inclusive principle of explanation, precluding any appeal to a supernatural cause or ordering agency.In a detailed analysis of the astronomical and physical theories of the Timaeus, Vlastos demonstrates Plato's role in the reception and transmission of the discovery of the new conception of the universe. Plato gives us the chance to see that movement from a unique perspective: that of a fierce opponent of the revolution who was determined to wrest from its brilliant discovery, annex its cosmos, and redesign it on the pattern of his own idealistic and theistic metaphysics.This book is a reprint of the edition published in 1975 by the University of Washington Press. It includes a new Introduction by Luc Brisson.Trade ReviewPresented by a brilliant modern philosopher who has lived with Plato’s work, this beautifully written account ought to be read by every educated person"". - Choice Reviews

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Book SynopsisParmenides of Elea was the most important and influential philosopher before Plato. Patricia Curd here reinterprets Parmenides' views and offers a new account of his relation to his predecessors and successors.In the traditional interpretation, Parmenides argues that generation, destruction, and change are unreal and that only one thing exists. He therefore rejected as impossible the scientific inquiry practiced by the earlier Presocratic philosophers. But the philosophers who came after Parmenides attempted to explain natural change and they assumed the reality of a plurality of basic entities. Thus, on the traditional interpretation, the later Presocratics either ignored or contradicted his arguments. In this book, Patricia Curd argues that Parmenides sought to reform rather than to reject scientific inquiry and offers a more coherent account of his influence on the philosophers who came after him.The Legacy of Parmenides provides a detailed examination of Parmenides' arguments, considering his connection to earlier Greek thought and how his account of ""what-is"" could serve as model for later philosophers. It then considers the theories of those who came after him, including the Pluralists (Anaxagoras and Empedocles), the Atomists (Leucippus and Democritus), the later Eleatics (Zeno and Melissus), and the later Presocratics (Philolaus of Croton and Diogenes of Apollonia). The book closes with a discussion of the importance of Parmenides' views for the development of Plato's Theory of Forms.This first-time in paperback edition includes a new Introduction by the author in which she clarifies her position on the following points: Monism, Internal and External Negations, Locomotion and the Specification of How What-is Is, and Doxa. Also added is a Supplementary Bibliography. (The Legacy of Parmenides was first published in hardcover in 1997 by Princeton University Press).Trade ReviewThis book by Patricia Curd (C. hereafter), professor of Purdue University (Indiana, USA), was published for the first time in 1998 (by Princeton University Press). The present paperback version of the book contains a few small changes in the main text and is prefaced by a new detailed introduction, in which C. answers criticism and clarifies her present position. The book is supplied with detailed indexes, bibliography and abundant footnotes. This introduction allows the reader to understand the C.'s intentions and the nature of her interest in Parmenidean doctrine. The introduction also maps the book: it refers to the parts of the book where the reader can find a detailed exposition of C.'s particular claims. Abridged"". - Bryn Mawr Classical Review Abridged

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Book SynopsisFascinating illustrations contribute to this illuminating account of how and why philosophy emerged and make it a must-read for any inquisitive thinker unsatisfied with prevailing assumptions on this timely and highly relevant subject.By taking the reader back to the Greek colonies of Southern Italy more than 500 years B.C.E., the author, with unparalleled insight, tells the story of the Pythagorean quest for otherworldly knowledge—a tale of cultism, political conspiracies, and bloody uprisings that eventually culminate in tragic failure. The emerging hero is Parmenides, who introduces for the first time a technique for testing the truth of a statement that was not based on physical evidence or mortal sense-perception, but instead relied exclusively on the faculty we humans share with the gods: the ability to reason.Trade ReviewHermann's book brings Parmenides to life through lucid explanations and an incisive use of quotations from Parmenides and his contemporaries, offering both scholars and lay readers a 21st-century consideration of an ancient thinker. It succeeds admirably, shedding a classical light on our own age as well as revealing lively intellect of the past"". - Publisher's Weekly

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Book SynopsisParmenides and the History of Dialectic is a study of Greek philosophical method as it affects contemporary philosophical issues. What was distinctive about the method of Parmenides, the inventor of philosophical argument as we know it? How did Parmenides' method affect Plato's dialectic, which was supposed to provide the solution to all ultimate philosophical problems? How, in turn, did Plato influence Hegel and our subsequent tradition?There are many studies of Parmenides' text, its philosophical content, and its influence. This study aims to do something different, to look at the form of the argument, the scope of its positive and negative language, the balanced structure its author generates, and the clear parallels with Plato's Parmenides.Along the way, Austin considers issues like these: was Parmenides, an absolute monist, entitled to speak at all, and in many negative words at that? How did he think that his own language related to the reality that he was trying to describe? What was his notion of the use of metaphor? What logical techniques did he invent? Has his type of philosophy come to an end?Trade ReviewThe three essays of Austin’s subtitle are, respectively, ‘Parmenidean Dialectic’ (1-27), which asserts that the central Parmenides fragment, B8, bespeaks a method that recurs in the second part of Plato’s Parmenides; ‘Parmenidean Metaphysics’ (29-49), which mostly makes claims about the ‘signposts’ cited in B8; and ‘Parmenides and the History of Dialectic’ (51-83), which compares B8 with the dialectic of a number of later figures, especially Plato, Aquinas, and Hegel. The essays are given a certain unity—hence their appearance together here—by the author’s predominant concern with the structure of Parmenides’ thought as opposed to its content"". - Ancient Philosophy

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Book SynopsisThis translation is the result of a collaboration between Arnold Hermann and Dr. Sylvana Chrysakopoulou. Heeding the challenge of balancing intelligibility with faithfulness—while maintaining sufficient consistency to allow the discernment of technical terms—great pains have been taken to secure both accuracy and accessibility. In his Foreword, Douglas Hedley gives an insightful account of the way the Parmenides was received by different cultures and philosophical schools throughout the centuries to the present day.Hermann’s Introduction, aimed at first time readers and professional interpreters alike, offers an overview of the most noted philosophical problems addressed in the dialogue, and of its historical background. In view of the fact that certain individual issues have been exhaustively explored by generations of scholars, Hermann chooses to focus also on subjects that have at times been passed over, or trivialized: the debt the dialogue may owe to the works of earlier thinkers, or whether it constitutes a response to certain critics of the Theory of Forms; as for the Theory itself, whether it is bolstered or superseded by the dialogue’s conclusions, or whether there is such a thing as a “simple,” unparticipated Form, and if there is, why it cannot be the subject of an account; also, the issue of the “interweaving of Forms,” (the Sophist) is discussed, in light of its possible relevance to the Second Part of the Parmenides. Finally, Hermann provides an overview with a listing and summaries of the individual conclusions to each of the eight central arguments of the dialgoue’s Second Part (plus Coda).Trade ReviewIn his 70-page introduction, Arnold Hermann himself is somewhat more restrained. He sees the First Part of the dialogue as targeting ‘naive misreadings’ (15) of the Theory of Forms, and the Second Part as ‘a successful attempt to illuminate the difficulties raised by the First’ (17). For instance (to take an easy example), a form is ‘itself by itself’, and such simplicity or straightforwardness is explored in Argument I of the Second Part. Or again, since Forms have to interweave, they can be seen as complex, such as the ‘One Being’ of Argument II. These are not original lines of thought, but the introduction well conveys the author's enthusiasm for a dialogue that strikes many as rather dry. Throughout, Hermann corroborates his views by drawing connections with the thought of the Parmenides and Zeno, and other Platonic passages"". - Heythrop Journal

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Book SynopsisPhysics 7.3 is one of the crucial texts in Aristotle's theory of change, in which he deals with the question of what alteration is and what it is not. Aristotle discusses change in various parts of his writings, and seems to provide a broad range of notions: movement and change of place, alteration in aspect and form, temporal change, variation in the way a given being is perceived, the change in relationship between beings, qualitative and accidental alterations.This volume presents the results of the ESAP-HYELE conference on ""Aristotle, Physics 7.3: What is Alteration?"", which took place in Vitznau, Switzerland in 2007. The contributors are part of a team of Aristotelian scholars that first came together in 1995, and have since been meeting every spring. The purpose of their gatherings was to read and interpret line by line a short, but important chapter of Aristotle's works. In this way, attention was focused on key texts of particular exegetic and theoretical interest. Each session started with the presentation of a translation and a first analysis of the main problems; these then became the subject of an intense debate which illustrates the different schools of thought and methodological approaches.This volume sets out to provide the reader with new insights into Aristotle's: Physics 7.3.Trade ReviewThis book is a very useful tool for understanding Phys. VII.3 in several respects: first, because it focuses on a limited portion of text which focuses on aspects of textual exegesis and philosophy, and secondly because VII.3 currency in relation to other writings of Aristotle and thus it provides a 'global interpretation, and finally because we appreciate the effort that was made by the authors to compare their positions and hermeneutics to connect with each other, as well as the efforts of curators to harmonize the content of the whole book. The final outcome is certainly that of a volume indispensable for future studies on the subject"". - Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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Book SynopsisIn Aristotle’s Empiricism, Jean De Groot argues that an important part of Aristotle’s natural philosophy has remained largely unexplored. She shows that much of Aristotle’s analysis of natural movement is influenced by mathematical mechanics that emerged from late Pythagorean thought. De Groot draws upon the pseudo-Aristotelian Physical Problems XVI to reconstruct the context of mechanics of Aristotle’s time and to trace the development of kinematic thinking from Archytas to the Aristotelian Mechanics. She argues that the influence of kinematics on Aristotle pinpoints the original meaning of his concept of power, or potentiality, as a physicalistic meaning addressed to the problem of movement.De Groot identifies epistemic features of kinematics as a scientific enterprise, including economy of explanation and direct inference to a principle. She shows how these features are woven into Aristotle’s thinking in the motion books of the Physics, On the Heavens, and Movement of Animals. The book places in doubt both the view that Aristotle’s natural philosophy codifies opinions held by convention and, alternatively, the view that the cogency of his scientific ideas depends on metaphysics.Trade ReviewThis book presents an ‘other’ or alternative Aristotle to the caricature and straw man set up through the mistaken Baconian capitulation to Democratean ‘sense data’, a non-empirical ideology that distorts rather than enhances our radical, unavoidable, pre-philosophic experience of power and necessity. This is a revolutionary book that transforms our view of Aristotle and specifically our evaluation of his natural philosophy"". - Heythrop Journal

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Book SynopsisThe science-and-religion dialogue has now become an established part of the wider cultural debate about the respective roles of science and religion within democratic societies. Typically, science has usually been identified with the sphere of reason, fact and explanation, whereas religion has been located within the realm of experience, value and interpretation. But religions also prescribe beliefs and support these with metaphysical accounts of the self, world and God. Such belief systems are both identity-forming and comprehensive. But the pluralism of world-views within modern liberal democracies and methodological naturalism in the sciences would seem to require believers to suspend these deeply-held beliefs when engaged in public discourse or scientific inquiry. This raises a number of interesting philosophical and practical issues which this volume seeks to address. As a reflection on the matrix of science, religion and politics, this volume constitutes a major contribution to an important, but neglected topic. This book will open up new lines of research and communication not only among philosophers, scientists and theologians, but for all those interested in the larger cultural conversation about the relationship between science and religion.

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Book SynopsisDie gegenwärtige Geschichtsphilosophie in ist in zwei relativ unvermittelte Ansätze geschieden: Der methodologisch-wissenschaftstheoretischen Analyse geschichtswissenschaftlicher Praxis steht die Reflexion auf die Geschichtlichkeit menschlicher Identität gegenüber. Bisherigen Versuchen zur Überwindung dieser Diskrepanz scheint der Rückgriff auf Hegels Geschichtsdenken versperrt, da dieses weiterhin als Beispiel einer substantialistischen, materialen Geschichtsphilosophie und mithin als theoretisch überholt gilt. Max Winter zeigt, dass Hegel nicht nur über eine theoretisch anspruchsvolle, formale Geschichtsphilosophie verfügt, sondern dass diese darüber hinaus auch geeignet ist, Gräben innerhalb der gegenwärtigen Geschichtsphilosophie zu überbrücken, indem sie eine Epistemologie historischen Wissens mit einer Theorie geschichtlicher Identität verbindet.

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Book SynopsisKants Kritik der reinen Vernunft schafft "zum Glauben Platz", indem sie "das Wissen aufhebt". Doch wie ist dieser Platz zu gestalten? Nach Kant nicht irgendwie, sondern durch einen "Vernunftglauben", der "in praktischer Absicht" für wahr hält, was für den theoretischen Vernunftgebrauch unentschieden bleibt. Burkhard Nonnenmacher analysiert Kants Verhältnisbestimmung von Vernunft und Glaube von Grund auf und entfaltet ihre Beziehung zur "Architektonik der reinen Vernunft". Kants fundamentaltheologische Weichenstellungen werden dabei ebenso dargestellt wie Kants materialdogmatische Grundentscheidungen der Religionsschrift. Gefragt wird, ob Kants Verhältnisbestimmung von Sünde, Gnade und Rechtfertigung sowie seine die Christologie, Ekklesiologie und Eschatologie betreffenden Positionierungen alternativlos sind, welche methodologischen Probleme sich an Kants Entwurf studieren lassen und was diese Probleme für die Systematische Theologie der Gegenwart bedeuten.

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