Michael Nagel's Books

Love and Power

The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics

By: Michael J. Perry

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Love and Power

The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics

By: Michael J. Perry

In this sequel to his Morality, Politics, and Law, Michael Perry addresses the proper relation of moral convictions to the politics of a morally pluralistic society. While his analysis focuses on religious morality, Perry's argument applies to morality generally. Contending that no justification of a contested political choice can be neutral among competing conceptions of human good, the author develops an ideal of "ecumenical politics" in which moral convictions about human good can be brought to bear in a productive way in political argument.

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229

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0198023308

ISBN 13

9780198023302

Emergence in Context

A Treatise in Twenty-First Century Natural Philosophy

By: Robert C. Bishop,Michael Silberstein,Mark Pexton

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Emergence in Context

A Treatise in Twenty-First Century Natural Philosophy

By: Robert C. Bishop,Michael Silberstein,Mark Pexton

Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? This book introduces a new account, contextual emergence, seeking to answer these questions. The authors offer an alternative picture of the world with an alternative account of how novelty and order arise, and how both are possible. Contextual emergence is grounded primarily in the sciences as opposed to logic or metaphysics. It is both an explanatory and ontological account of emergence that gets beyond the impasse between “weak” and “strong” emergence in the emergence debates. It challenges the “foundationalist” or hierarchical picture of reality and emphasizes the ontological and explanatory fundamentality of multiscale stability conditions and their contextual constraints, often operating globally over interconnected, interdependent, and interacting entities and their multiscale relations. It also focuses on the conditions that make the existence, stability, and persistence of emergent systems and their states and observables possible. These conditions and constraints are irreducibly multiscale relations, so it is not surprising that scientific explanation is often multiscale. Such multiscale conditions act as gatekeepers for systems to access modal possibilities (e.g., reducing or enhancing a system's degrees of freedom). Using examples from across the sciences, ranging from physics to biology to neuroscience and beyond, this book demonstrates that there is an empirically well-grounded, viable alternative to ontological reductionism coupled with explanatory anti-reductionism (weak emergence) and ontological disunity coupled with the impossibility of robust scientific explanation (strong emergence). Central metaphysics of science concerns are also addressed. Emergence in Context: A Treatise in Twenty-First Century Natural Philosophy is written primarily for philosophers of science, but also professional scientists from multiple disciplines who are interested in emergence and particularly in the metaphysics of science.

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360

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0192666630

ISBN 13

9780192666635

Verstehen

The Uses of Understanding in the Social Sciences

By: Michael Martin

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Verstehen

The Uses of Understanding in the Social Sciences

By: Michael Martin

In late nineteenth-century German academic circles, the term verstehen (literally, understanding, or comprehension) came to be associated with the view that social phenomena must be understood from the point of view of the social actor. Advocates of this approach were opposed by positivists who stressed the unity of method between the social and natural sciences and an external, experimental, and quantitative knowledge. Although modified over time, the dispute between positivists and antipositivists--nowadays called naturalists and antinaturalists--has persisted and still defines many debates in the field of philosophy of social sciences. In this volume, Michael Martin offers a critical appraisal of verstehen as a method of verification and discovery as well as a necessary condition for understanding. In its strongest forms, verstehen entails subjectively reliving the experience of the social actor or at least rethinking his or her thoughts, while in its weaker forms it only involves reconstructing the rationale for acting. Martin's opening chapter offers a reconsideration of the debate between the classical verstehen theorists--Wilhelm Dilthey, Max Weber, R.G. Collingwood--and the positivists. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with positivist critiques of verstehen as a method of social scientific verification and understanding. In the subsequent chapters Martin considers contemporary varieties of the verstehen position and argues that they like the classical positions, they conflict with the pluralistic nature of social science. Chapter 4 discusses Peter Winch's and William Dray's variants of verstehen, while chapters 5 through 9 consider recent theorists--Karl Popper, Charles Taylor, Clifford Geertz--whose work can be characterized in verstehenist terms: In his conclusion Martin defines the limitations of the classical and recent verstehen positions and proposes a methodological pluralism in which verstehen is justified pragmatically in terms of the purposes and contexts of inquiry. This volume is the only comprehensive and sustained critique of verstehen theory currently available. It will be of interest to sociologists, philosophers, political scientists, and anthropologists.

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407

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1351327100

ISBN 13

9781351327107

The Conceptual Worlds of the Fourth Gospel

Intertextuality and Early Reception

By: Charles B. Puskas,C. Michael Robbins

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The Conceptual Worlds of the Fourth Gospel

Intertextuality and Early Reception

By: Charles B. Puskas,C. Michael Robbins

Over, under, and through John's story of Jesus are unforgettable ideas and concepts, profoundly simple and simply profound, for the author's own audience and beyond. These ideas did not originate in a vacuum. They have recurred and been repeated before and after the writing of the Fourth Gospel. For this reason we will examine the meaning of its words and themes in the context of its Jewish-Greco-Roman milieu. Much of our intertextual understanding will be derived from alleged parallels that involve comparisons of similar vocabulary and phrases, as well as parallel concepts and images from the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, and other relevant writings. Such parallels will help to determine the meaning of a word or expression, the translation of a particular language, determining any direct influences upon the Fourth Gospel, parallel traditions, or the influence of its ideas, as a creative and inspiring work of later antiquity.

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171

Publisher

Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1532681739

ISBN 13

9781532681738

Discovering Levinas

By: Michael L. Morgan

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Discovering Levinas

By: Michael L. Morgan

In Discovering Levinas, Michael L. Morgan shows how this thinker faces in novel and provocative ways central philosophical problems of twentieth-century philosophy and religious thought. He tackles this task by placing Levinas in conversation with philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, Onora O'Neill, Charles Taylor, and Cora Diamond. He also seeks to understand Levinas within philosophical, religious, and political developments in the history of twentieth-century intellectual culture. Morgan demystifies Levinas by examining his unfamiliar and surprising vocabulary, interpreting texts with an eye to clarity, and arguing that Levinas can be understood as a philosopher of the everyday. Morgan also shows that Levinas's ethics is not morally and politically irrelevant nor is it excessively narrow and demanding in unacceptable ways. Neither glib dismissal nor fawning acceptance, this book provides a sympathetic reading that can form a foundation for a responsible critique.

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Cambridge University Press

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ISBN 10

1139464736

ISBN 13

9781139464734

Essays on the History of Ethics

By: Michael Slote

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Essays on the History of Ethics

By: Michael Slote

Michael Slote collects his essays that deal with aspects of both ancient & modern ethical thought & seek to point out conceptual/normative comparisons & contrasts among different views. The relationship between ancient ethical theory & modern moral philosophy is a major theme of several of the papers.

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176

Publisher

OUP USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195391551

ISBN 13

9780195391558

The Semantics of Knowledge Attributions

By: Michael Blome-Tillmann

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The Semantics of Knowledge Attributions

By: Michael Blome-Tillmann

In this book, Michael Blome-Tillmann offers a critical overview of the current debate on the semantics of knowledge attributions. The book is divided into five parts. Part 1 introduces the reader to the literature on 'knowledge' attributions by outlining the historical roots of the debate and providing an in-depth discussion of epistemic contextualism. After examining the advantages and disadvantages of the view, Part 2 offers a detailed investigation of epistemic impurism (or pragmatic encroachment views), while Part 3 is devoted to a careful examination of epistemic relativism and Part 4 to two different types of strict invariantism (psychological and pragmatic). The final part of the book explores Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism - a version of contextualism that is argued to provide a more powerful and elegant account of the semantics of 'knowledge' attributions than many of its competitors. A clear and precise account is provided of the main principles underlying each view and of how they aim to explain the pertinent data and resolve philosophical puzzles and challenges. The book also provides charts outlining the relations between the positions discussed and offers suggestions for further reading.

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257

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0192677527

ISBN 13

9780192677525

Open Secrets

Literature, Education, and Authority from J-J. Rousseau to J. M. Coetzee

By: Michael Bell

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Open Secrets

Literature, Education, and Authority from J-J. Rousseau to J. M. Coetzee

By: Michael Bell

Open Secrets reflects on contemporary humanistic pedagogy by examining the limits of the teachable in this domain. The Goethean motif of the open secret refers not to a revealed mystery but to an utterance that is not understood, the likely fate of any instruction based purely on authority. Revisiting the European Bildungsroman, it studies the pedagogical relationship from the point of view of the tutor or mentor figure rather than with the usual focus on the young hero. The argument is not confined to works of fiction, however, but examines texts in which the category of fiction has a crucial and constitutive function, for a growing awareness of limited authority on the part of the mentor figures is closely related to fictive self-consciousness in the texts. Rousseau's Emile, as a semi-novelised treatise, whose fictiveness is at once overt and yet unmarked, is relatively unaware of the imaginary nature of its envisaged authority. Passing through Laurence Sterne, C. M. Wieland, Goethe and Nietzsche, the situation is gradually reversed, culminating with the conscious impasse of authority in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. All these writers have achieved their pedagogical impact despite, indeed by means of, their internal scepticism. By contrast, in the three subsequent writers, D. H. Lawrence, F. R. Leavis and J. M. Coetzee, the impasse of pedagogical authority becomes more literal as the authority of Bildung is eroded in the wider culture. The awareness of pedagogical authority as a species of fiction, to be conducted in an aesthetic spirit, remains a significant prophylactic against the perennial pressure of reductive conceptions of the education as form of instructional 'production'.

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272

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OUP Oxford

Published Date

ISBN 10

0191525979

ISBN 13

9780191525971

Placing Blame

A Theory of the Criminal Law

By: Michael S. Moore

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Placing Blame

A Theory of the Criminal Law

By: Michael S. Moore

This is a collection of essays written by Moore which form a thorough examination of the theory of criminal responsibility. The author covers a wide range of topics, giving the book a coherence and unity which is rare in assembled essays. Perhaps the most significant feature of this book isMoore's espousal of a retributivist theory of punishment. This anti-utilitarian standpoint is a common thread throughout the book. It is also a trend which is currently manifesting itself in all areas of moral, political and legal philosophy, but Moore is one of the first to apply such attitudes sosytematically to criminal law theory. As such, this innovative, new book will be of great interest to all scholars in this field.

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873

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199599491

ISBN 13

9780199599493

Computational Statistical Physics

From Billards to Monte-Carlo

By: K.-H. Hoffmann,Michael Schreiber

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Computational Statistical Physics

From Billards to Monte-Carlo

By: K.-H. Hoffmann,Michael Schreiber

In recent years statistical physics has made significant progress as a result of advances in numerical techniques. While good textbooks exist on the general aspects of statistical physics, the numerical methods and the new developments based on large-scale computing are not usually adequately presented. In this book 16 experts describe the application of methods of statistical physics to various areas in physics such as disordered materials, quasicrystals, semiconductors, and also to other areas beyond physics, such as financial markets, game theory, evolution, and traffic planning, in which statistical physics has recently become significant. In this way the universality of the underlying concepts and methods such as fractals, random matrix theory, time series, neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, becomes clear. The topics are covered by introductory, tutorial presentations.

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330

Publisher

Springer Science & Business Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

3540421602

ISBN 13

9783540421603

On Voluntary Servitude

False Consciousness and the Theory of Ideology

By: Michael Rosen

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On Voluntary Servitude

False Consciousness and the Theory of Ideology

By: Michael Rosen

Those who approach the history of political thought must pick their way through a veritable elephant’s graveyard of grand theories. This book is aimed at one of the oldest and grandest of them all: the theory of ideology. The Age of Grand Theory has only recently ended, yet it is already hard to recall how many unquestioningly believed in the idea of ideology as false consciousness, most notably in Karl Marx’s version of that idea. Michael Rosen diagnoses the underlying question to which the theory of ideology was meant to provide the answer: “Why do people accept forms of political domination which it is against their interests to accept?” This book provides a historical and critical analysis of that answer and of the way in which it came to be taken for granted in social theory. Rosen’s post-mortem makes it clear that Marx was never able to develop an adequate theory of ideology and that recent attempts at reconstructive surgery on what he did give us, by G.A. Cohen and Jon Elster, have been unsuccessful. However, by putting Marx into a history that runs from Plato and Augustine to Benjamin, Adorno, and Habermas, Rosen shows that, though Marx may have failed, the rationalist tradition on which he drew is far from dead—that it is, in fact, the dominant tradition in Western political thought, with very few effective dissenters. This is a very rich and wide-ranging book in the history of ideas, written with philosophic rigor and great clarity.

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316

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674637798

ISBN 13

9780674637795

Law and Psychiatry

Rethinking the Relationship

By: Michael S. Moore

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Law and Psychiatry

Rethinking the Relationship

By: Michael S. Moore

This book is about the competing images of man offered us by the disciplines of law and psychiatry. Michael Moore describes the legal view of persons as rational and autonomous and defends it from the challenges presented by three psychiatric ideas: that badness is illness, that the unconscious rules our mental life, and that a person is a community of selves more than a unified single self. Using the tools of modern philosophy, he attempts to show that the moral metaphysical foundations of our law are not eroded by these challenges of psychiatry. The book thus seeks, through philosophy, to go beneath the centuries-old debates between lawyers and psychiatrists, and to reveal their hidden agreement about the nature of man. Some attention is paid to practical legal and psychiatric issues of contemporary concern, such as the proper definition of mental illness for psychiatric purposes, and the proper definition of legal insanity for legal purposes. This book was first announced, for publication in hard covers, in the Press's January to July seasonal list.

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550

Publisher

CUP Archive

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521255988

ISBN 13

9780521255981

Dying Adam with his Multiethnic Family

Understanding the Greek Life of Adam and Eve

By: Michael D. Eldridge

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Dying Adam with his Multiethnic Family

Understanding the Greek Life of Adam and Eve

By: Michael D. Eldridge

The Greek Life of Adam and Eve addresses the issue that every individual in every generation needs to face: the prospect of pain and sickness leading to death and beyond that the great unknown. But what kind of message does this writing bring to its readers? What kind of ‘salvation’ does it offer? Is it a Jewish or Christian text? In this first attempt to provide a comprehensive interpretation, Michael Eldridge deploys a panoply of scholarly methods, including lexical analysis, textual criticism, genre criticism, narrative criticism and speech act theory, to establish that the Greek Life has in part a missionary intent and is most likely a Jewish rather than a Christian text. This study will interest all concerned with Early Judaism, especially those grappling with the ‘Jewish mission’ question.

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331

Publisher

BRILL

Published Date

ISBN 10

9004496300

ISBN 13

9789004496309

Bowled Over

Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era

By: Michael Oriard

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Bowled Over

Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era

By: Michael Oriard

In this compellingly argued and deeply personal book, respected sports historian Michael Oriard--who was himself a former second-team All-American at Notre Dame--explores a wide range of trends that have changed the face of big-time college football and transformed the role of the student-athlete. Oriard considers such issues as the politicization of football in the 1960s and the implications of the integration of college football. The heart of the book examines a handful of decisions by the NCAA in the early seventies--to make freshmen eligible to play, to lower admission standards, and, most critically, to replace four-year athletic scholarships with one-year renewable scholarships--that helped transform student-athletes into athlete-students and turned the college game into a virtual farm league for professional football. Oriard then traces the subsequent history of the sport as it has tried to grapple with the fundamental contradiction of college football as both extracurricular activity and multi-billion-dollar mass entertainment. The relentless necessity to pursue revenue, Oriard argues, undermines attempts to maintain academic standards, and it fosters a football culture in which athletes are both excessively entitled and exploited. As a former college football player, Oriard brings a unique perspective to his topic, and his sympathies are always with the players and for the game. This original and compelling study will interest everyone concerned about the future of college football.

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349

Publisher

Univ of North Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807898651

ISBN 13

9780807898659

Bodyline Hypocrisy

By: Michael Arnold

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Bodyline Hypocrisy

By: Michael Arnold

This fresh analysis of the England&–Australia "e;Bodyline Controversy"e; of 1932-33 uncovers hypocrisy on both sides of the furore, drawing on exclusive interviews with English "e;villain of the piece"e; (and Australian emigre) Harold Larwood. At the time, Australia was a young, isolated country where sport was a religion, winning essential, and the media prone to distortion. In England, the MCC was pressurised by a British government fearing trade repercussions, leaving Harold Larwood and Douglas Jardine to be hung out to dry on a clothes-line of political expediency. The Bodyline Hypocrisy analyzes the influence of Australian culture on events, and on exaggerations and distortions previously accepted as fact. It reveals that the MCC granted Honorary Membership to Larwood in 1949, influenced by its Australian president. And now even Ian Chappell has stated that Jardine's leg-theory tactic was simply playing Test cricket with whatever weapons were available. Times change and the truth emerges.

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298

Publisher

eBook Partnership

Published Date

ISBN 10

190917890X

ISBN 13

9781909178908

The Consciousness Instinct

Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind

By: Michael S. Gazzaniga

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The Consciousness Instinct

Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind

By: Michael S. Gazzaniga

“The father of cognitive neuroscience” illuminates the past, present, and future of the mind-brain problem How do neurons turn into minds? How does physical “stuff”—atoms, molecules, chemicals, and cells—create the vivid and various worlds inside our heads? The problem of consciousness has gnawed at us for millennia. In the last century there have been massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the science of the brain, and yet the puzzles faced by the ancient Greeks are still present. In The Consciousness Instinct, the neuroscience pioneer Michael S. Gazzaniga puts the latest research in conversation with the history of human thinking about the mind, giving a big-picture view of what science has revealed about consciousness. The idea of the brain as a machine, first proposed centuries ago, has led to assumptions about the relationship between mind and brain that dog scientists and philosophers to this day. Gazzaniga asserts that this model has it backward—brains make machines, but they cannot be reduced to one. New research suggests the brain is actually a confederation of independent modules working together. Understanding how consciousness could emanate from such an organization will help define the future of brain science and artificial intelligence, and close the gap between brain and mind. Captivating and accessible, with insights drawn from a lifetime at the forefront of the field, The Consciousness Instinct sets the course for the neuroscience of tomorrow.

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274

Publisher

Macmillan + ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374128766

ISBN 13

9780374128760

The Problem of Political Authority

An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey

By: Michael Huemer

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The Problem of Political Authority

An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey

By: Michael Huemer

The state is often ascribed a special sort of authority, one that obliges citizens to obey its commands and entitles the state to enforce those commands through threats of violence. This book argues that this notion is a moral illusion: no one has ever possessed that sort of authority.

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391

Publisher

Springer

Published Date

ISBN 10

1137281669

ISBN 13

9781137281661

What's the Point of Knowledge?

A Function-first Epistemology

By: Michael J. Hannon

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What's the Point of Knowledge?

A Function-first Epistemology

By: Michael J. Hannon

This book is about knowledge and its value. The central hypothesis is that humans think and speak of knowing in order to identify reliable informants, which is vital for human survival, cooperation, and flourishing. This simple idea is used to answer an array of complex and consequential philosophical questions.

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289

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190914726

ISBN 13

9780190914721

Hubris: The Troubling Science, Economics, and Politics of Climate Change

By: Michael Hart

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Hubris: The Troubling Science, Economics, and Politics of Climate Change

By: Michael Hart

The book explores problems and issues that have emerged in national and international discussion of policies to address climate change. It concludes that every solution put forward by the UN and activists poses more problems than might ever emerge from the marginal human impact on natural climate change. Rather than mitigation, governments should focus on adaptation. As is, climate change discussions have become captive of a utopian agenda that is using climate change as a stalking horse to drive alarm in the hope that it will convince governments to act."--

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616

Publisher

Lulu.com

Published Date

ISBN 10

0994903804

ISBN 13

9780994903808

Christian Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems

By: Michael C. Banner

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Christian Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems

By: Michael C. Banner

This book addresses such key ethical issues as euthanasia, the environment, biotechnology, abortion, the family, sexual ethics, and the distribution of health care resources. Michael Banner argues that the task of Christian ethics is to understand the world and humankind in the light of the credal affirmations of the Christian faith, and to explicate this understanding in its significance for human action through a critical engagement with the concerns, claims and problems of other ethics. He illustrates both the distinctiveness of Christian convictions in relation to the above issues and also the critical dialogue with practices based on other convictions which this sense of distinctiveness motivates but does not prevent. The book's importance lies in its attempt to show the crucial difference which Christian belief makes to an understanding of these issues, whilst at the same time demonstrating some of the weaknesses and confusions of certain popular approaches to them.

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356

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521625548

ISBN 13

9780521625548

Moral Sentimentalism

By: Michael Slote

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Moral Sentimentalism

By: Michael Slote

There has recently been a good deal of interest in moral sentimentalism, but most of that interest has been exclusively either in metaethical questions about the meaning of moral terms or in normative issues about benevolence and/or caring and their place in morality. In Moral Sentimentalism Michael Slote attempts to deal with both sorts of issues and to do so, primarily, in terms of the notion or phenomenon of empathy. Hume sought to do something like this over two centuries ago, though he didn't have the term "empathy" and used "sympathy" instead; and in effect Slote is seeking to give moral sentimentalism a "second wind" in and for contemporary circumstances. By relying systematically on empathy in its account of normative morality and in what it has to say about the meaning of moral vocabulary, Moral Sentimentalism offers a unified overall ethical picture that can then be tested against ethical rationalism. Rationalism has recently dominated the scene in ethics, but by showing how sentimentalism can make coherent and intuitive sense of such preferred rationalist notions as autonomy, respect, and justice--and by showing how a sentimentalism based in empathy can deal with ethically significant aspects of the moral life that rationalism tends to ignore or skimp on--Slote hopes a wider and more active debate between rationalism and sentimentalism can be set in motion. There are signs that sentimentalist modes of thought are gaining new footholds on the way ethics is done, and this new book is very hopeful about these possibilities.

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178

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199889333

ISBN 13

9780199889334

A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings

By: Michael Ruse

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A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings

By: Michael Ruse

Considers why humans consider themselves superior to all other animals, and whether they are right to do so.

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223

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Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1108820433

ISBN 13

9781108820431

No Man Dies Twice

By: Michael Smith

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No Man Dies Twice

By: Michael Smith

In this World War II detective novel, a beleaguered German cop’s latest case leads him to foreign spies and a plot to assassinate Hitler. Insp. Peter Ritter, one of the few honest detectives left in wartime Germany, is losing his grip on reality. The word on the street in the small Bavarian city of Rosenheim is that Ritter is not long for this world. He’s made too many enemies with his rants against the regime and his obsession with solving crime, even when the villains are Nazi officials. The Gestapo is tracking his every move, and his marriage is falling apart. His only refuge is in drunken conversations with the specter of his dead father-in-law. When the killing of a Jew is followed by the bloody and brutal stabbing of the local Gestapo chief, Ritter realizes there is far more going on than just homicide. He uncovers a plot to assassinate Hitler, with British spies fighting a turf war on his patch. Ritter is left with a stark choice: call in the Gestapo or let the assassins succeed, in the hope that killing the Führer will save the Germany he loves. Perfect for fans of Tom Rob Smith and Philip Kerr Praise for No Man Dies Twice “Riveting . . . Smith takes us into an area of wartime Germany we have rarely read about before.” —Joseph Heywood, New York Times–bestselling author of Shadow of the Wolf Tree “A powerful debut full of fear, suspense, violence, and geopolitical machinations . . . Smith explores turf reminiscent of the historical fiction of Alan Furst and Joseph Kanon.” —Sebastian Rotella, author of Rip Crew “A gripping mystery.” —Publishers Weekly

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295

Publisher

Diversion Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1635761913

ISBN 13

9781635761917

A Sentimentalist Theory of the Mind

By: Michael Slote

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A Sentimentalist Theory of the Mind

By: Michael Slote

Michael Slote argues that emotion is involved in all human thought and action on conceptual grounds, rather than merely being causally connected with other aspects of the mind. This kind of general sentimentalism about the mind goes beyond that advocated by Hume, and the book's main arguments are only partially anticipated in German Romanticism and in the Chinese philosophical tendency to avoid rigid distinctions between thought and emotion. The new sentimentalist philosophy of mind Slote proposes can solve important problems about the nature of belief and action that other approaches -- including Pragmatism -- fail to address. In arguing for the centrality of emotion within philosophy of the mind, A Sentimentalist Theory of the Mind continues the critique of rationalist philosophical views that began with Slote's Moral Sentimentalism (OUP, 2010) and continued in his From Enlightenment to Receptivity (OUP, 2013). This new book also delves into what is distinctive about human minds, arguing that there is a greater variety to ordinary human motives than has been recognized and that emotions play a central role in this complex psychology.

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273

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ISBN 10

019937175X

ISBN 13

9780199371754

Three Creation Stories

A Rabbi Encounters the Universe

By: Michael Gold

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Three Creation Stories

A Rabbi Encounters the Universe

By: Michael Gold

What is reality? Is reality both mind and matter, body and soul, as taught by Western religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? This is dualism, the approach of philosophers from Plato to Descartes. Or is reality only matter, as taught by many modern scientists and philosophers? This is materialism, the approach of philosophers from Hobbes to Marx. Or is reality only mind, as taught by Eastern religions and Western mystics. This is the approach of philosophers from Berkeley to Whitehead. The beginning of Genesis allows for multiple translations and interpretations. We will read the creation story in Genesis from the point of view of each of these three approaches—dualism, materialism, and idealism. In doing so, we will tell three very different creation stories. These stories will take us on a fascinating journey through science, philosophy, and religion. Join us on this journey as we explore issues such as does God perform miracles, why is there evil in the universe, was Darwin correct, can robots have souls, and if light is a wave, what is waving?

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223

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Wipf and Stock Publishers

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ISBN 10

1532653751

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9781532653759

Meeting the Alien

An Introduction to Exosociology

By: Andreas Anton,Michael Schetsche

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Meeting the Alien

An Introduction to Exosociology

By: Andreas Anton,Michael Schetsche

Is mankind alone in the universe? Will we ever encounter intelligent life beyond Earth? These questions have been asked for centuries. Recent advances in the fields of astrophysics, astronomy and astrobiology make it more likely than ever before, that Earth may not be the only inhabited planet, and that humanity may not the only intelligent species in the universe. What would be the consequences of contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence? This question is at the heart of the emerging discipline of exosociology. According to the authors, first contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence poses enormous risks for humanity. These risks come not only from extraterrestrials, but above all from ourselves. We should be prepared. Michael Schetsche and Andreas Anton's comprehensive introduction to exosociology was first published in German in 2019. The book has been widely acclaimed in Germany and internationally. It is now available in English for the first time.

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287

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Springer Nature

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ISBN 10

3658413174

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9783658413170

Henry Adams & the Southern Question

By: Michael O'Brien

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Henry Adams & the Southern Question

By: Michael O'Brien

“Strictly, the Southerner had no mind; he had temperament. He was not a scholar; he had no intellectual training; he could not analyze an idea, and he could not even conceive of admitting two.” This judgment, rendered in The Education of Henry Adams, may be the most quoted of Adams’s writings on the South. However, it is far from the only one of his beliefs that helped to shape a national outlook on the region from the late antebellum period to the present. Thinking about the South, says Michael O’Brien, was “part of being an Adams.” In this book O’Brien shows how Adams (grandson of President John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of President John Adams) looked at the region during various phases of his life. O’Brien explores the cultural and familial impulses behind those views and locates them in American intellectual history. He begins with the young Henry Adams, who served as his father’s secretary in the House of Representatives during the secession crises of 1860-1861 and in the American embassy in London during and after the Civil War, until 1868. O’Brien then covers a number of topics relevant to Adams’s outlook on the South, including his residency in that deceptively “southern” city, Washington, D.C.; his journalism on the Reconstruction-era South; his biographical or historical works on the Virginians John Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison; and his two novels, especially Democracy. Finally, O’Brien ponders the vein of southern self-criticism--exemplified by Wilbur J. Cash’s Mind of the South--that embraces the notorious slur so often quoted from The Education of Henry Adams.

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220

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University of Georgia Press

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0820329568

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9780820329567

The Five Sedgwicks

Pioneer Entertainers of Vaudeville, Film and Television

By: Michael Zmuda

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The Five Sedgwicks

Pioneer Entertainers of Vaudeville, Film and Television

By: Michael Zmuda

Individually and together, The Five Sedgwicks are among the unsung heroes of early filmmaking in Hollywood. Their work took them from vaudeville to silent film, through the studio era and into the Golden Age of television. By the late 1920s the Sedgwick siblings were well-known motion picture personalities: Edward was satirized by actor Harry Gribbon as an enthusiastic comedy director in King Vidor's 1928 silent comedy hit Show People; Josie was a star of Western films and was presented the honorific title of "Queen of the Roundup"; Universal Films promoted Eileen as their "Queen of the Serial." This book details the family's extensive contributions to the entertainment industry.

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273

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McFarland

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ISBN 10

0786496681

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9780786496686

Wittgenstein on Sensation and Perception

By: Michael Hymers

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Wittgenstein on Sensation and Perception

By: Michael Hymers

This book offers two novel claims about Wittgenstein’s views and methods on perception as explored in the Philosophical Investigations. The first is an interpretive claim about Wittgenstein: that his views on sensation and perception, including his critique of private language, have their roots in his reflections on sense-datum theories and on what Hymers calls the misleading metaphor of phenomenal space. The second is a major philosophical claim: that Wittgenstein’s critique of the misleading metaphor of phenomenal space is of ongoing relevance to current debates concerning first-person authority and the problem of perception because we are still tempted to draw inferences about the phenomenal that only apply to the physical. Many contemporary discussions of these topics are thus premised on the very confusions Wittgenstein sought to dispel. This book will appeal to Wittgenstein scholars who are interested in the Philosophical Investigations and to philosophers of perception who may think that Wittgenstein’s views are mistaken, irrelevant, or already adequately appreciated.

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217

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Taylor & Francis

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ISBN 10

1315402130

ISBN 13

9781315402130

With All Your Mind

A Christian Philosophy of Education

By: Michael L. Peterson

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With All Your Mind

A Christian Philosophy of Education

By: Michael L. Peterson

With All Your Mind makes a compelling case for the value of thinking deeply about education in America from a historically orthodox and broadly ecumenical Christian point of view. Few people dispute that education in America is in a state of crisis. But not many have posed workable solutions to this serious problem. Michael Peterson contends that thinking philosophically about education is our only hope for meaningful progress. In this refreshing book, he invites all who are concerned about education in America to "participate" in his study, which analyzes representative theories and practical strategies that reveal the power of Christian ideas in this vital area.

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202

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University of Notre Dame Pess

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ISBN 10

0268161496

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9780268161491

Atheism, Morality, and Meaning

By: Michael Martin

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Atheism, Morality, and Meaning

By: Michael Martin

Despite the pluralism of contemporary American culture, the Judaeo-Christian legacy still has a great deal of influence on the popular imagination. Thus it is not surprising that in this context atheism has a slightly scandalous ring, and unbelief is often associated with lack of morality and a meaningless existence. Distinguished philosopher and committed atheist Michael Martin sets out to refute this notion in this thorough defense of atheism as a both moral and meaningful philosophy of life. Martin shows not only that objective morality and a meaningful life are possible without belief in God but that the predominantly Christian world view of American society is seriously flawed as the basis of morality and meaning.Divided into four parts, this cogent and tightly argued treatise begins with well-known criticisms of nonreligious ethics and then develops an atheistic meta-ethics. In Part 2, Martin criticizes the Christian foundation of ethics, specifically the Divine Command Theory and the idea of imitating the life of Jesus as the basis of Christian morality. Part 3 demonstrates that life can be meaningful in the absence of religious belief. Part 4 criticizes the theistic point of view in general terms as well as the specific Christian doctrines of the Atonement, Salvation, and the Resurrection.This highly informed and sophisticated defense of atheism is a stimulating challenge to religious believers and a serious contribution to ethical theory.

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330

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Prometheus Books

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ISBN 10

1615923829

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9781615923823

The Renaissance of the Levant

Arabic and Greek Discourses of Reform in the Age of Nationalism

By: Michael Kreutz

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The Renaissance of the Levant

Arabic and Greek Discourses of Reform in the Age of Nationalism

By: Michael Kreutz

Since the Mediterranean connects cultures, Mediterranean studies have by definition an intercultural focus. Throughout the modern era, the Ottoman Empire has had a lasting impact on the cultures and societies of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. However, the modern Balkans are usually studied within the context of European history, the southern Mediterranean within the context of Islam. Although it makes sense to connect both regions, this is a vast field and requires a command of different languages not necessarily related to each other. Investigating both Greek and Arabic sources, this book will shed some light on the significance of ideas in the political transitions of their time and how the proponents of these transitions often became so overwhelmed by the events that they helped trigger adjustments to their own ideas. Also, the discourses in Greek and Arabic reflect the provinces of the Ottoman Empire and it is instructive to see their differences and commonalities which helps explain contemporary politics.

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194

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Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published Date

ISBN 10

3110634007

ISBN 13

9783110634006

Evolutionary Naturalism

Selected Essays

By: Michael Ruse

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Evolutionary Naturalism

Selected Essays

By: Michael Ruse

This is a collection of essays on the history and philosophy of evolutionary biology by the well-known Canadian scholar, Michael Ruse. Much has been written newly for the collection, as the author explores themes of evolutionary naturalism, putting the theory of knowledge and of moral behaviour on a philosophical basis informed by contemporary evolutionary biology. Divided into three parts, the first set of essays considers issues in the history of science - Darwin, population biology, and the new paleontological theory of `punctuated equilibria' - attempting to find a path between the crude objectivity espoused by many working scientists, and the rank relativism of post-modernist critiques of science. The second set of essays turns directly to the theory of knowledge (epistemology), arguing that the fact that we are evolved beings rather than objects of special creation, must and does inform our thinking about the external world. The third set of essays, the most controversial, turns to questions of morality, arguing that ethical systems are ultimately no more than collective illusions put in place by our biology, because humans are essentially social animals. Written in a clear and non-technical fashion, this collection carries forward debate on a number of controversial issues, showing that the time has now come to take philosophy from the hands of academic theorists and to embrace fully the findings and consequences of modern science.

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275

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Routledge

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1134877625

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9781134877621

Astronaut Maker

How One Mysterious Engineer Ran Human Spaceflight for a Generation

By: Michael Cassutt

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Astronaut Maker

How One Mysterious Engineer Ran Human Spaceflight for a Generation

By: Michael Cassutt

One of the most elusive and controversial figures in NASA's history, George W. S. Abbey was called "the Dark Lord," "the Godfather," and "UNO" (unidentified NASA official) by those within NASA. From young pilot and wannabe astronaut to engineer, bureaucrat, and finally director of the Johnson Space Center ("mission control"), Abbey's story has never been fully told—until now. This fascinating account takes readers inside NASA to learn the real story of how Abbey rose to power and wielded it out of the spotlight. Informed by countless hours of interviews with Abbey and his family, friends, adversaries, and former colleagues, The Astronaut Maker is the ultimate insider's account of ambition and power politics at NASA.

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360

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Chicago Review Press

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ISBN 10

1613737033

ISBN 13

9781613737033

Writing Against Time

By: Michael W. Clune

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Writing Against Time

By: Michael W. Clune

For centuries, a central goal of art has been to make us see the world with new eyes. Thinkers from Edmund Burke to Elaine Scarry have understood this effort as the attempt to create new forms. But as anyone who has ever worn out a song by repeated listening knows, artistic form is hardly immune to sensation-killing habit. Some of our most ambitious writers—Keats, Proust, Nabokov, Ashbery—have been obsessed by this problem. Attempting to create an image that never gets old, they experiment with virtual, ideal forms. Poems and novels become workshops, as fragments of the real world are scrutinized for insights and the shape of an ideal artwork is pieced together. These writers, voracious in their appetite for any knowledge that will further their goal, find help in unlikely places. The logic of totalitarian regimes, the phenomenology of music, the pathology of addiction, and global commodity exchange furnish them with tools and models for arresting neurobiological time. Reading central works of the past two centuries in light of their shared ambition, Clune produces a revisionary understanding of some of our most important literature.

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200

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Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804784825

ISBN 13

9780804784825

Book's by Michael Nagel

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