Books in the Continuum Studies in American Philosophy series

The American idealist movement started in St Louis, Missouri in 1858, becoming more influential as women joined and influenced its development. This book deals with the women of the early American idealist movement in philosophy. It features a chapter that is devoted to the life, practical work, and philosophical ideas of each of them.

Willard Van Orman Quine was an analytic philosopher of the second half of the twentieth century. This book is devoted to defend Quine's indeterminacy of translation doctrine. The author adopts a critical and nuanced approach to Quine's texts, showing that Quine sometimes changed his positions and was not always as clear and consistent.

Not only discloses the institutional backdrop against which speech takes place, also initiates a 'philosophy of society'. In locating The Construction of Social Reality, this book not only makes John Searle's text accessible to the readers in the social sciences, but presents Max Weber as a thinker worthy of philosophical reconsideration.

A monograph combining the innovation of American pragmatism with the vision of feminist epistemologies and exploring common ground between the two fields. It considers two equally formidable approaches theorized by Louise Antony and Lynn Hankinson Nelson.

The philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce is important at every stage of the history of modern American thought. This work explains that one concern with the idea of fallibilism is that it might all too easily slide into "skepticism", and this would undermine the project of making Peirce's fallibilism the linchpin for any realistic pragmatism.

Shows how an understanding of the intentionality underlining the pragmatism of Peirce and James can herald fresh interpretations of the interplay between philosophy and religion. This book also shows us how readings of "American Pragmatism" founded on mistakenly used categories of the Analytic tradition have led to misreadings of Peirce and James.

Trained by some of the most eminent philosophers of the 20th century, Richard Rorty has come to be one of the strongest critics of the philosophical tradition. This book considers the impact of Rorty's position on religious belief. It suggests that he helps to enhance and enliven both the philosophy of religion and the chances for moral progress.

Examines and critiques John Rawls' epistemology and the unresolved tension - inherited from Kant - between Representationalism and Constructivism in Rawls' work. This title argues that, despite Rawls' claims to be a constructivist, his unexplored Kantian influences cause several problems.

A philosophical study that addresses the conceptual and analytical question: how does the concept of reality function and how should we think with regard to the issue of reality's relations to appearances? It proposes that while realism is a sensible and tenable position, nevertheless there is something to be said for idealism as well.

Feminist philosophy identifies tensions within mainstream theories of knowledge. To create a more egalitarian epistemology, solutions to these problems have been as diverse as the traditions of philosophy out of which feminists emerge. This book considers two equally formidable approaches theorized by Louise Antony and Lynn Hankinson Nelson.

Famously and notoriously, Robert Nozick argues against the welfare state in Anarchy, State and Utopia. Following a brief review of different notions of rights and freedoms, this book examines what Nozick means by compensation, and what injustices that he thinks it can rectify.

W V Quine was the most important naturalistic philosopher of the twentieth century and a major impetus for the resurgence of the view that empirical science is our best avenue to knowledge. This book examines Quine's naturalism.

Argues for two key claims: first, that the so-called "Neo-Pragmatist" critique of traditional epistemology is unconvincing; second, that Rorty is guilty of taking the name of Pragmatism in vain, since there are crucial and far-reaching differences between Neo-Pragmatism and the Classical Pragmatism of James and Dewey.

John Rawls was an important moral and political philosopher. This book explores the legacy of his work. It makes contribution not only to work on Rawls' thought but to contemporary debates in ethics and justice as well.

Presents a study of Richard Rorty's "New Pragmatism" on its own terms, and a critical analysis of its implications for contemporary thought. This book concludes that Rorty's pragmatism is self-defeating, suppressing genuine conversation and ultimately constricting creativity.

Offers a critique of Maclntyre by Dewey that allows these two philosophers to converse about the nature and origins of the virtues and their importance for living a good life. This book argues that Dewey has the more comprehensive view of the virtues and that a comparison of their ideas reveals significant weaknesses in Maclntyre's position.

Richard Rorty is regarded as something of a pariah in mainstream philosophical circles. In this book, the author takes seriously Rorty's writings, showing how, contrary to what many philosophers believe, he actually helps to enhance and enliven both the philosophy of religion and the chances for moral progress.

Charles S Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, was also the architect of a remarkable theory of signs that continues to puzzle and inspire philosophers. This book presents a rhetorical approach to Peirce's philosophy. It articulates an approach to Peirce's semeiotic through a meticulous reassessment of the role of rhetoric in his work.

Offers novel reading of the relations between two central philosophical disciplines - metaphysics and ethics. This book proposes a pragmatist re-articulation of the nature, aims and methods of metaphysics.