A Contemporary Introduction

By William Fish

The philosophy of perception investigates the nature of our sensory experiences and their relation to reality. Raising questions about the conscious character of perceptual experiences, how they enable us to acquire knowledge of the world in which we live, and what exactly it is we are aware of when we hallucinate or dream, the philosophy of perception is a growing area of interest in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind.

William Fish’s Philosophy of Perception introduces the subject thematically, setting out the major theories of perception together with their motivations and attendant problems. While providing historical background to debates in the field, this comprehensive overview focuses on recent presentations and defenses of the different theories, and looks beyond visual perception to take into account the role of other senses.

Topics covered include:

• The Phenomenal Principle
• Perception and Hallucination
• Perception and Content
• Sense-Data, Adverbialism and Idealism
• Disjunctivism and Relationalism
• Intentionalism and Combined Theories
• The Nature of Content
• Veridicality
• Perception and Empirical Science
• Non-Visual Perception

With summaries and suggested further reading at the end of each chapter, this is an ideal introduction to the philosophy of perception.

ISBN: 9780415999113

Published March 12 2010 by Routledge.

By Mark Schroeder

According to noncognitivists, when we say that stealing is wrong, what we are doing is more like venting our feelings about stealing or encouraging one another not to steal, than like stating facts about morality. These ideas challenge the core not only of much thinking about morality and metaethics, but also of much philosophical thought about language and meaning.

Noncognitivism in Ethics is an outstanding introduction to these theories, ranging from their early history through the latest contemporary developments. Beginning with a general introduction to metaethics, Mark Schroeder introduces and assesses three principal kinds of noncognitivist theory: the speech-act theories of Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare, the expressivist theories of Blackburn and Gibbard, and hybrid theories. He pays particular attention both to the philosophical problems about what moral facts could be about or how they could matter which noncognitivism seeks to solve, and to the deep problems that it faces, including the task of explaining both the nature of moral thought and the complexity of moral attitudes, and the ‘Frege-Geach’ problem.

Schroeder makes even the most difficult material accessible by offering crucial background along the way. Also included are exercises at the end of each chapter, chapter summaries, and a glossary of technical terms - making Noncognitivism in Ethics essential reading for all students of ethics and metaethics.

ISBN: 9780415773430

Published March 10 2010 by Routledge.

Rom Harré and Designing the Social Sciences

Edited by Luk van Langenhove

Rom Harré has pushed the boundaries of our thinking about people and societies and has challenged the orthodox philosophy of science and social psychology. His countless books and articles have inspired generations of scholars in philosophy, psychology, linguistics, cognitive science and social theory. The diversity of his work makes that some see him as a leading figure in the critical realist school of philosophy of science, other as a key player in developing a social constructionist approach to psychology. The present volume brings together a careful selection of his key writings and presents them in a framework that stresses the evolution of his thinking as well as the place of his thinking in ongoing debates in different disciplines. The overall theme is the study of people and their ways of life. This is the first book that gives readers a systematic introduction in the conceptual universe of this towering figure.

ISBN: 9780415567244

Published March 09 2010 by Routledge.

By David Scott

This book addresses fundamental questions in relation to education and its epistemology. The position taken by the author is critical realist; and thus throughout the relationship between education and critical realism is foregrounded. Themes and issues that surface at different times in the book are: a critical realist view of education research; a resolution of the quantitative/qualitative divide; criteria for judging the worth of educational texts and practices; differences between scientific and critical realisms; empirical research methods in education; structure-agency relationships; pragmatist views of educational research; foundations and paradigmatic differences; and educational critique and transformation.

ISBN: 9780415473491

Published March 03 2010 by Routledge.

Divine Command Theory in Arabo-Islamic Thought

By Mariam al-Attar

This book explores philosophical ethics in Arabo-Islamic thought. Examining the meaning, origin and development of "Divine Command Theory", it underscores the philosophical bases of religious fundamentalism that hinder social development and hamper dialogue between different cultures and nations.

Challenging traditional stereotypes of Islam, the book refutes contemporary claims that Islam is a defining case of ethical voluntarism, and that the prominent theory in Islamic ethical thought is Divine Command Theory. The author argues that, in fact, early Arab-Islamic scholars articulated moral theories: theories of value and theories of obligation. She traces the development of Arabo-Islamic ethics from the early Islamic theological and political debates between the Kharijites and the Murji’ites, shedding new light on the moral theory of Abd al-Jabbar al-Mu’tazili and the effects of this moral theory on post-Mu’tazilite ethical thought.

Highlighting important aspects in the development of Islamic thought, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Islamic moral thought and ethics, Islamic law, and religious fundamentalism.

ISBN: 9780415555197

Published March 03 2010 by Routledge.

Reading "The History of British India"

By David McInerney

This study considers the relations between James Mill's The History of British India (1818) and Enlightenment historiography, especially William Robertson's Historical Disquisition Concerning the Knowledge the Ancients had of India (1791). David McInerney argues that it was in The History of British India that Mill first published his theory of government, which appears there in his account of 'Oriental despotism' and his criticisms of Robertson's account of the caste system, and that, contrary to the opinion of certain critics, Mill's usage of 'history' in The History of British India is not rationalist but rather entails a distinctively empiricist conception of the relationship between historical records and the improvement of government.

ISBN: 9780415956123

Published March 01 2010 by Routledge.

Edited by Jeffrey Kauffman

Shame is a common and pervasive feature of the human response to death and other losses, yet this often goes unrecognized due to a reluctance to acknowledge and confront it. This book intends to expose shame for what it is, allowing clinicians to see that it is the central psychological force in the understanding of death and mourning. Kauffman and his fellow authors explore the psychology of shame via observation, reflection, theory, and practice in order to demonstrate the significant role it can play in our processing of grief, death, and trauma. The authors avoid defining a unified theory of shame in order to emphasize its multitude of meanings and the impact this has on grief and grief therapy. First-person narratives provide a personal look at death and associated feelings of guilt, shock, and grief; and other chapters consider shame in the context of cultural differences, recent events, and contemporary art, literature, and film. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive examination of this topic and, as such, will be a valuable resource for all clinicians who work with clients affected by grief and loss.

ISBN: 9780415997485

Published February 24 2010 by Routledge.

Asceticism, meat and Christian diet

By David Grumett, Rachel Muers

Food - what we eat, how much we eat, how it is produced and prepared, and its cultural and ecological significance- is an increasingly significant topic not only for scholars but for all of us. Theology on the Menu is the first systematic and historical assessment of Christian attitudes to food and its role in shaping Christian identity. David Grumett and Rachel Muers unfold a fascinating history of feasting and fasting, food regulations and resistance to regulation, the symbolism attached to particular foods, the relationship between diet and doctrine, and how food has shaped inter-religious encounters. Everyone interested in Christian approaches to food and diet or seeking to understand how theology can engage fruitfully with everyday life will find this book a stimulus and an inspiration.

ISBN: 9780415496827

Published February 24 2010 by Routledge.

The Saint of Rationalism

Edited by Georgios Varouxakis, Paul Kelly

More than two hundred years after his birth, and 150 years after the publication of his most famous essay On Liberty, John Stuart Mill remains one of the towering intellectual figures of the Western tradition. This book combines an up-to-date assessment of the philosophical legacy of Mill’s arguments, his complex version of liberalism and his account of the relationship between character and ethical and political commitment. Bringing together key international and interdisciplinary scholars, including Martha Nussbaum and Peter Singer, this book combines the latest insights of Mill scholarship with a long-term appraisal of the ways in which Mill’s work has been received and interpreted from the time of his death in 1873 to today.

The book offers compelling insights into Mill’s posthumous fate and reputation; his youthful political and intellectual activism; his views on the formation of character; the development of his thought on logic; his differences from his father and Bentham; his astonishingly prescient, environmentally sensitive and ‘green’ thought; his relation to virtue ethics; his conception of higher pleasures and its relation to his understanding of justice; his feminist thought and its place in contemporary debates and feminist discourses; his defence of free speech and its fundamental significance for his liberalism; and his continued contemporary relevance on a number of major issues.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Politics, Political Theory, Philosophy, History, English, Psychology, and also Cultural Studies, Empire studies, nationalism and ethnicity studies.

ISBN: 9780415555180

Published February 18 2010 by Routledge.

The Moral Purpose of the Market

By David Andrews

Well-connected in academia, business and government, John Maynard Keynes was one of the most influential economic theorists of the twentieth century. It appears that his theories will be just as important for the twenty-first. As Keynes himself explained, his ideas throughout his life were influenced by the moral philosophy he learned as an undergraduate. Nevertheless, the meaning and significance for Keynes of this early philosophy have remained largely unexplored.

Keynes and the British Humanist Tradition offers an interpretation of Keynes’s early philosophy and its implications for his later thought. It approaches that philosophy from the perspective of the nineteenth century intellectual context out of which it emerged. The book argues that roots of Keynes’s early beliefs are to be found in the traditions of the Apostles, the very famous secret society to which he and most of his teachers belonged. The principles of Keynes’s philosophy can be seen in such writers as John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick, but the underlying ideas have been obscured by changing fashions in philosophy and thus require excavation and reconstruction.

This book will be of interest to students and researchers in the history of economics, in particular the thought of John Maynard Keynes, especially his ethics, politics and economics.

ISBN: 9780415299862

Published February 16 2010 by Routledge.