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SOCRATES is an international, multi-disciplinary, refereed and indexed scholarly journal. This journal appears quarterly in English. Disciplines Covered: English literature; Philosophy; Politics, Law and Governance/Public Administration. About this issue: This issue of Socrates has been divided into three sections. The first section is English Language & Literature. The paper authored by Mounir Sanhaji discusses the construction of ‘otherness’ in media discourse that is meant to legitimize and naturalize the reproduction of the ideology of opposition that widens the gap between the identification of “Self” and “Other”. The second section of this issue is Philosophy. The Paper aut...
"The majority of the papers herein originated at the workshop 'Process Philosophy of Biology' ... held in Exeter in November 2014."--Page vii.
In this revised edition of The Secret Connexion, Galen Strawson explores one of the most discussed subjects in philosophy: David Hume's work on causation. He argues that Hume believes in causal influence, but insists that we cannot know its nature. The regularity theory of causation is indefensible, and Hume never adopted it in any case.
Spinoza's Ethics, published in 1677, is considered his greatest work and one of history's most influential philosophical treatises. This volume brings established scholars together with new voices to engage with the complex system of philosophy proposed by Spinoza in his masterpiece. Topics including identity, thought, free will, metaphysics, and reason are all addressed, as individual chapters investigate the key themes of the Ethics and combine to offer readers a fresh and thought-provoking view of the work as a whole. Written in a clear and accessible style, the volume sets out cutting-edge research that reflects, challenges, and promotes the most recent scholarly advances in the field of Spinoza studies, tackling old issues and bringing to light new subjects for debate.
The Effectiveness of Causes presents a strong view of causation seen as an operation between participants in events, and not as a relation holding between events themselves. In it, Emmet proposes that other philosophical views of cause and effect provide only a world of events, each of which is presented as an unchanging unit. Such a world, she contends, is a "Zeno universe," since transitions and movement are lost. Emmet offers a more complex interpretation of the various forms of causal dependence. She sees "immanent" causation in the mere persistence of things, where effects are not temporarily separable from causes, and she considers the operation of "efficacious grace." This is a new approach to the traditional problem and provides stimulating implications for the other metaphysical questions and for the philosophy of science.
Michael Ruse offers a new analysis of the often troubled relationship between science and religion. Arguing against both extremes - in one corner, the New Atheists; in the other, the Creationists and their offspring the Intelligent Designers - he asserts that science is the highest source of human inquiry. Yet, by its very nature and its deep reliance on metaphor, science restricts itself and is unable to answer basic, significant questions about the meaning of the universe and humankind's place within it: why is there something rather than nothing? What is the meaning of it all? Ruse shows that one can legitimately be a skeptic about these questions, and yet why it is open for a Christian, or member of any faith, to offer answers. Scientists, he concludes, should be proud of their achievements but modest about their scope. Christians should be confident of their mission but respectful of the successes of science.
A novel interpretation of quantum mechanics, first proposed in brief form by Hugh Everett in 1957, forms the nucleus around which this book has developed. In his interpretation, Dr. Everett denies the existence of a separate classical realm and asserts the propriety of considering a state vector for the whole universe. Because this state vector never collapses, reality as a whole is rigorously deterministic. This reality, which is described jointly by the dynamical variables and the state vector, is not the reality customarily perceived; rather, it is a reality composed of many worlds. By virtue of the temporal development of the dynamical variables, the state vector decomposes naturally int...
This Element is an introduction to the metaphysics of biology, a very general account of the nature of the living world. The first part of the Element addresses more traditionally philosophical questions - whether biological systems are reducible to the properties of their physical parts, causation and laws of nature, substantialist and processualist accounts of life, and the nature of biological kinds. The second half will offer an understanding of important biological entities, drawing on the earlier discussions. This division should not be taken too seriously, however: the topics in both parts are deeply interconnected. Although this does not claim to be a scientific work, it does aim to be firmly grounded in our best scientific knowledge; it is an exercise in naturalistic metaphysics. Its most distinctive feature is that argues throughout for a view of living systems as processes rather than things or, in the technical philosophical sense, substances.
The first new novel in five years from “one of the most versatile and accomplished writers of her generation” —Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker. Jessica Speight, a young anthropology student in 1960s London, is at the beginning of a promising academic career when an affair with her married professor turns her into a single mother. Anna is a pure gold baby with a delightful, sunny nature, but it soon becomes clear that she will not be a normal child. As readers are drawn deeper into Jessica’s world, they are confronted with questions of responsibility, potential, even age, all with Margaret Drabble’s characteristic intelligence, sympathy and wit. Drabble once wrote, “Family life itself, that safest, most traditional, most approved of female choices, is not a sanctuary; it is, perpetually, a dangerous place.” Told from the point of view of the group of mothers who surround Jess, The Pure Gold Baby is a brilliant, prismatic novel that takes us into that place with satiric verve, trenchant commentary and a movingly intimate story of the unexpected transformations at the heart of motherhood.
These tales of Pakistani society provide an insight into family relationships, marriage, rites of passage, societal roles and the impact of political change. The title story follows the obsession of a schoolmaster with a woman whose veiled face he never sees.