Books in the Cambridge Studies in Philosophy series

This study is an unusual contribution to the philosophy of mind in that it argues for the sometimes unfashionable view of dualism: that mind and matter are distinct and separate entities as Descartes believed.

The Structure of Emotions argues that emotion concepts should have a much more important role in the social and behavioural sciences than they now enjoy, and shows that certain influential psychological theories of emotions overlook the explanatory power of our emotion concepts. Professor Gordon also outlines a new account of the nature of commonsense (or 'folk') psychology in general.

This book presents an original theory of the nature of pictorial representation. The most influential recent theory of depiction holds that the relation between depictions and what they represent is entirely conventional. Flint Schier argues to the contrary that depiction involves resemblance to the things depicted.

How can a system of criminal punishment be justified? In particular can it be justified if the moral demand that we respect each other as autonomous moral agents is taken seriously? The conclusion is pessimistic: punishment cannot be justified within our legal system; and this gap between the ideal and the actual presents us with serious moral dilemmas.

This book develops in detail the simple idea that assertion is the expression of belief. In it the author puts forward a version of 'probabilistic semantics' which acknowledges that we are not perfectly rational, and which offers a significant advance in generality on theories of meaning couched in terms of truth conditions.

This book examines the philosophical foundations of the realist view of the progress of science as cumulative. It is a view that has recently been faced with a number of powerful attacks in which successive scientific theories are seen, not as extending their scope and honing their explanations, but as incommensurable.

In this influential study of central issues in the philosophy of science, Paul Horwich elaborates on an important conception of probability, diagnosing the failure of previous attempts to resolve these issues as stemming from a too-rigid conception of belief. Adopting a Bayesian strategy, he argues for a probabilistic approach, yielding a more complete understanding of the characteristics of scientific reasoning and methodology. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Colin Howson, illuminating its enduring importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this engaging work has been revived for a new generation of readers.

Is linguistic meaning to be accounted for independently of the states of mind of language users, or can it only be explained in terms of them? In this book Brian Loar offers a subtle and comprehensive theory that both preserves the natural priority of the mind in explanations of meaning.

First published in 1982, Ellery Eells' original work on rational decision making had extensive implications for probability theorists, economists, statisticians and psychologists concerned with decision making and the employment of Bayesian principles. His analysis of the philosophical and psychological significance of Bayesian decision theories, causal decision theories and Newcomb's paradox continues to be influential in philosophy of science. His book is now revived for a new generation of readers and presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, including a specially commissioned preface written by Brian Skyrms, illuminating its continuing importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry.

In a clear, even-handed and non-technical discussion D. M. Armstrong makes a compelling case for truthmaking and its importance in philosophy. This book, first published in 2004, marks a significant contribution to the debate and will be of interest to a wide range of readers working in analytical philosophy.

This book is concerned with the alleged capacity of the human mind to arrive at beliefs and knowledge about the world on the basis of pure reason without any dependence on sensory experience. Laurence BonJour presents the most comprehensive exposition and defence of the rationalist view that insight independent of experience is a genuine basis for knowledge.

This book espouses a theory of scientific realism in which due weight is given to mathematics and logic. The authors argue that mathematics can be understood realistically if it is seen to be the study of universals, of properties and relations, of patterns and structures, the kinds of things which can be in several places at once.

This book demonstrates the importance of philosophical work in action theory for the central metaphysical task of understanding our place in nature.

Michael Devitt is a distinguished philosopher of language. In this book he takes up one of the most important difficulties that must be faced by philosophical semantics: namely, the threat posed by holism. This important study will be of particular interest to philosophers of language and mind, and could be used in graduate-level seminars in these areas.

Henry Richardson argues that we can determine our ends rationally. He constructs a rich and original theory of how we can reason about what to seek for its own sake as a final goal. Richardson defuses the counter-arguments for the limits of rational deliberation, and develops interesting ideas about how his model might be extended to interpersonal deliberation of ends.

In an important departure from theories of causation, David Owens challenges the ideas of Hume, Davidson and Lewis, and offers alternative solutions to the problems still confronting theorists of causation.

This 1991 book is about the continuing influence of Hume's ideas on moral and political philosophy. While the author subjects most contemporary defenses of Humean doctrines to intense criticism, he also seeks to discover what versions of Hume's theories might still be defensible and viable.

This collection of essays by one of the most prominent and internationally respected philosophers of action theory is concerned with deepening our understanding of the notion of intention. Michael Bratman's collection will be a valuable resource for a wide range of philosophers and their students.

In this book, first published in 2000, Rosanna Keefe explores the questions of what we should want from an account of vagueness and how we should assess rival theories. Her powerful study will be of interest to readers in philosophy of mind and of language, philosophical logic, epistemology and metaphysics.

This third volume of Lewis's papers is devoted to his work in ethics and social philosophy. The purpose of this collection, and the two preceding volumes on Logic, and Epistemology and Metaphysics, is to disseminate more widely the work of an eminent and influential contemporary philosopher.

Explaining Attitudes develops an account of propositional attitudes - practical realism. Practical realism is an antidote to the now-dominant 'Standard View', according to which beliefs, if there are any, are identical to or are constituted by brain states. Practical realism takes beliefs to be states of whole persons, rather like states of health.

This is a book about sensory states and their apparent characteristics. It confronts a whole series of metaphysical and epistemological questions and presents an argument for type materialism: the view that sensory states are identical with the neural states with which they are correlated.

Develops a theory of value that seeks to reconcile reason with passions, and explores how this grounds our commitment to moral action. The author argues that rational moral action can neither be seen as a way of just maximizing one's own values, nor derived from reason independent of one's values.

This important new book develops a new concept of autonomy. The notion of autonomy has emerged as central to contemporary moral and political philosophy, particularly in the area of applied ethics. professor Dworkin examines the nature and value of autonomy and uses the concept to analyse various practical moral issues such as proxy consent in the medical context, paternalism, and entrapment by law enforcement officials.

This book, first published in 2000, is about the nature of skeptical arguments and their role in philosophical inquiry. John Greco argues that a number of historically prominent skeptical arguments make no obvious mistake, and therefore cannot be easily dismissed.

The principal aim of this book is to develop and defend an analysis of the concept of moral obligation. What it seeks to do is to generate solutions to a range of philosophical problems concerning obligation and its application. This study will be of particular interest to all philosophers concerned with normative ethical theory.

This is the first of a three-volume collection of David Lewis's most recent papers in all the areas to which he has made significant contributions. The purpose of this collection (and the two volumes to follow) is to disseminate even more widely the work of a preeminent and influential late twentieth-century philosopher. The papers are now offered in a readily accessible format. This first volume is devoted to Lewis's work on philosophical logic from the last twenty-five years. The topics covered include: deploying the methods of formal semantics from artificial formalised languages to natural languages, model-theoretic investigations of intensional logic, contradiction, relevance, the differences between analog and digital representation, and questions arising from the construction of ambitious formalised philosophical systems. The volume will serve as an important reference tool for all philosophers and their students.

This work proposes a way to a naturalistic synthesis, one that accords the mental a place in the physical world alongside the non-mental.

This book gathers together thirteen of Peter van Inwagen's essays on metaphysics, several of which have acquired the status of modern classics in their field. A specially-written introduction completes the collection, which will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in metaphysics.