Leibniz's Naturalized Philosophy of Mind

Leibniz's Naturalized Philosophy of Mind
Author: Larry M. Jorgensen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2019-02-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191023973

Larry M. Jorgensen provides a systematic reappraisal of Leibniz's philosophy of mind, revealing the full metaphysical background that allowed Leibniz to see farther than most of his contemporaries. In recent philosophy much effort has been put into discovering a naturalized theory of mind. Leibniz's efforts to reach a similar goal three hundred years earlier offer a critical stance from which we can assess our own theories. But while the goals might be similar, the content of Leibniz's theory significantly diverges from that of today's thought. Perhaps surprisingly, Leibniz's theological commitments yielded a thoroughgoing naturalizing methodology: the properties of an object are explicable in terms of the object's nature. Larry M. Jorgensen shows how this methodology led Leibniz to a fully natural theory of mind.

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World
Author: Matthew Stewart
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2007-01-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0393071049

"Exhilarating…Stewart has achieved a near impossibility, creating a page-turner about jousting metaphysical ideas, casting thinkers as warriors." —Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review Once upon a time, philosophy was a dangerous business—and for no one more so than for Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century philosopher vilified by theologians and political authorities everywhere as “the atheist Jew.” As his inflammatory manuscripts circulated underground, Spinoza lived a humble existence in The Hague, grinding optical lenses to make ends meet. Meanwhile, in the glittering salons of Paris, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was climbing the ladder of courtly success. In between trips to the opera and groundbreaking work in mathematics, philosophy, and jurisprudence, he took every opportunity to denounce Spinoza, relishing his self-appointed role as “God’s attorney.” In this exquisitely written philosophical romance of attraction and repulsion, greed and virtue, religion and heresy, Matthew Stewart gives narrative form to an epic contest of ideas that shook the seventeenth century—and continues today.

Christian Philosophy A-Z

Christian Philosophy A-Z
Author: Daniel Hill
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2006-07-21
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 0748627022

A handy guide to the major figures and issues in Christian philosophy from Augustine to the present.This volume covers a broad historical sweep and takes into account those non-Christian philosophers that have had a great impact on the Christian tradition. However, it concentrates on the issues that perplex Christian philosophers as they seek to think through their faith in a philosophical way and their philosophical beliefs in the light of their faith. Examples of the topics discussed are the question of whether and how God knows the future, whether we actually know that God exists, and what Athens has to do with Jerusalem. The leaders of the recent revival of Christian analytic philosophy, especially Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, William Alston, and Robert Adams are also included.

The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding

The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding
Author: Michael J. Raven
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 677
Release: 2020-05-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351258826

Some of philosophy’s biggest questions, both historically and today, are in-virtue-of questions: In virtue of what is an action right or wrong? In virtue of what am I the same person my mother bore? In virtue of what is an artwork beautiful? Philosophers attempt to answer many of these types of in-virtue-of questions, but philosophers are also increasingly focusing on what an in-virtue-of question is in the first place. Many assume, at least as a working hypothesis, that in-virtue-of questions involve a distinctively metaphysical kind of determinative explanation called “ground.” This Handbook surveys the state of the art on ground as well as its connections and applications to other topics. The central issues of ground are discussed in 37 chapters, all written exclusively for this volume by a wide range of leading experts. The chapters are organized into the following sections: I. History II. Explanation and Determination III. Logic and Structure IV. Connections V. Applications Introductions at the start of each section provide an overview of the section’s contents, and a list of Related Topics at the end of each chapter points readers to other germane areas throughout the volume. The resulting volume is accessible enough for advanced students and informative enough for researchers. It is essential reading for anyone hoping to get clearer on what the biggest questions of philosophy are really asking.

Historical Dictionary of Heidegger's Philosophy

Historical Dictionary of Heidegger's Philosophy
Author: Frank Schalow
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2010
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0810859637

This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Heidegger's Philosophy examines the development of Martin Heidegger's thought in all its nuances and facets. It also casts light on the historical influences that shaped the thinker himself and his era. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, and a bibliography that includes key books on Heidegger in several languages, including German, French, Italian, and English. The appendixes offer a comprehensive list of all of Heidegger's writings and lectures courses, along with their corresponding English translations, and the dictionary offers more than 600 cross-referenced entries on concepts, people, works, and technical terms This resource is invaluable for students and scholars. Book jacket.

Deconstruction, Its Force, Its Violence

Deconstruction, Its Force, Its Violence
Author: Rodolphe Gasché
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2015-12-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1438460023

In this book, Rodolphe Gasché returns to some of the founding texts of deconstruction to propose a new and broader way of understanding it—not as an operation or method to reach an elusive outside, or beyond, of metaphysics, but as something that takes place within it. Rather than unraveling metaphysics, deconstruction loosens its binary and hierarchical conceptual structure. To make this case, Gasché focuses on the concepts of force and violence in the work of Jacques Derrida, looking to his essays "Force and Signification" and "Force of Law," and his reading on Of Grammatology in Claude Lévi-Strauss's autobiographical Tristes Tropiques. The concept of force has not drawn extensive scrutiny in Derrida scholarship, but it is crucial to understanding how, by way of spacing and temporizing, philosophical opposition is reinscribed into a differential economy of forces. Gasché concludes with an essay addressing the question of deconstruction and judgment and considers whether deconstruction suspends the possibility of judgment, or whether it is, on the contrary, a hyperbolic demand for judgment.