Books in the Continuum Studies in Philosophy series

Descartes' characterisation of the mind as a 'thinking thing' marks the beginning of modern philosophy of mind. It is also the point of departure for Descartes' own system in which the mind is the first object of knowledge for those who reason 'in an orderly way'. This book shows that the Cartesian mind has been widely misunderstood.

Drawing on insights from Continental, Feminist and Religious thought, this title explores alternative approaches to medical ethics. It considers such important subjects as attitudes to the body, informed consent, paternalism and the role of the law in medicine.

A collection of essays examining the significance of philosophical inquiry in relation to the issue of climate change. It asks fundamental questions about human nature and, more importantly, the concept of nature itself. It proposes a way of beginning the important task of rethinking the relationship between humanity and the natural environment.

Because of Baruch Spinoza's radical transformation of the concept of God, he has been characterized as "God-intoxicated man." This book provides an exploration of what Spinoza understood God to be; how, for him, the infinite and eternal power of God is expressed; and how finite human beings can have a true idea of God.

Re-assesses the contributions of Hegel and Schelling to post-Kantian metaphysics and the contributions of these great German Idealist thinkers to contemporary thought. This book shows how far we still have to go in mining the thought of Hegel and Schelling and how exciting, as a result, we can expect twenty-first century philosophy to be.

Provides an assessment of feminist rejections of rationality and a reconstruction of the concept to meet feminist demands. This book represents a sustained argument for a feminist theory of rationality. It opens by asking the question: is reason inherently masculine?

Offers insight into Immanuel Kant's notion of radical evil. This book explores this neglected existential side of Kant's work. It presents radical evil as vacillating between tragic and freedom, at the threshold of humanity. It offers an account of what is widely considered to be an intricate yet urgent problem of philosophy.

A collection of essays that rectifies a long-standing misconception in the history of the relation between Hegel and analytic philosophy. It offers 'analytic' readings of Hegel, Hegelian readings of the analytic tradition, historical explorations of Hegel's confrontation with Kant and of the analytic tradition's debt to Hegel.

Analytic and Continental philosophy have become increasingly specialised and differentiated fields of endeavour. This collection of essays examines the strengths and weaknesses of each tradition, and ultimately encourages enhanced understanding, dialogue and even rapprochement between these sometimes antagonistic adversaries.

In modern philosophy, German idealism, Hegel in particular, is said to have made significant innovative steps in redefining the meaning, scope and use of dialectic. This book brings together an international team of expert contributors in a discussion of Hegelian dialectic.

Offers a novel, critical account of the origins and development of the dominant school of philosophy in the English-speaking world. This title argues that analytic philosophy has never involved significant agreement on substantive philosophical views, and thus that it has always been in this state of crisis.

A collection of essays that examine the significance of philosophical inquiry in relation to the issue of climate change. It presents ten essays by an international team of expert contributors, exploring the important contribution philosophical inquiry can make to debates to do with climate change and the global environment.

John Duns Scotus (d 1308), known as the 'subtle doctor' among medieval school men, produced a formidable philosophical theology using and adapting an Aristotelian metaphysical framework. This book shows how Scotus' treatment of the problem of universals is both coherent and, even by contemporary standards, cogent.

A monograph on an overlooked aspect of Kant's aesthetic theory, presenting an approach to one of modern philosophy's greatest works. It examines Kant's various attempts to distinguish beauty from agreeableness. It argues that the real interest of Kant's distinction between beauty and agreeableness is ultimately epistemological.

Presents a study of Hegel's social theory. This book outlines an alternative approach to a liberal politics of difference. It begins by constructing a definition of oppression that illuminates, from a liberal perspective, its salient features.

The concept of innateness is central to Descartes' epistemology; the Meditations display a new, non-Aristotelian method of acquiring knowledge by attending properly to our innate ideas. This book argues that Descartes' remarks on innate ideas in fact form a unified account.

Offers a reading of the work of Kierkegaard in relation to metaphysics and political theory. This title argues that the notion of the person that lies at the heart of the liberal tradition is derived from a Kantian and Cartesian metaphysic. It also offers an alternative metaphysical image of the person that is derived from the work of Kierkegaard.

Argues that a good human being is one who has those traits the possession of which enables someone to achieve those ends natural to beings like us. This book shows that neither 'is-ought' gaps, nor objections concerning teleology pose insurmountable problems for naturalistic virtue ethics.

Offers an interpretation of Augustine and of a central aspect of medieval thought as a whole. This work seeks to revise a common reading of Augustine's critique of ancient virtue by focusing on that dialogue, while showing that his attitude towards those authors is more sympathetic, and more critical, than one might expect.

Proposes that agents must be motivated correctly to acquire knowledge, even in the case of perception. This book examines the empirical research in cognitive science and moral psychology to build an account of knowledge wherein an agent must perform acts of virtue in order to get knowledge.

Examines prominent feminist ideas regarding how to revise and enrich the concept of objectivity. These theories offer us warnings about 'idealized' concepts of objectivity and propose conceptions of objectivity that are intended to allow us to increase the extent to which our scientific theories are objective.

Provides a defence of metaphysics as central to philosophy and a criticism of the attempts of philosophy to replace it. This work argues that philosophy, and not simply science, has a positive role to play in our understanding of the world.

Addresses our understanding of the origins of early analytic philosophy. This book aims to chart the nature and significance of Frege's break with Kant over the question of whether arithmetic is a synthetic a priori or an analytic a priori science.

Offers readings of Hegel's central works in order to explain his views on various topics and as such demonstrates that his accounts of representation, the concept and the speculative sentence can be used to create sophisticated theories of language acquisition, universal grammar and linguistic practice.

Shows how tolerance connects with the practice of philosophy. This book examines the virtue of tolerance as it appears in several historical contexts: Socratic philosophy, Stoic philosophy, Pragmatism, and Existentialism.

Relativism, the view that knowledge is relative to time, culture, group and/or individual, remains a pervasive intellectual position in philosophy. This book investigates several varieties of relativism proposed over the centuries and identifies relativism as a central strand of thought that permeates much of post-colonial and postmodern thinking.

Thomas Aquinas has always been viewed as a highly importantfigure in Western Civilization, and the chief philosopher of RomanCatholicism. In recent decades there has been a renewed interest inAquinas'' thought as scholars have been exploring the relevance of histhought to contemporary philosophical problems.The book will be of interest not only to historians of medievalphilosophy, but to philosophers who work on problems associated withthe nature of material objects. Because human beings are typicallyunderstood to be a kind of material object, the book will also be ofinterest to philosophers working on topics in the philosophy of religion,philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of human nature. Although thework contains the kinds of details that are necessary for a work of historical scholarship, it is written in amanner that makes it approachable for undergraduate students in philosophy and so it would be awelcomed addition to any university library.

Franz Brentano (1838-1917) is almost unique as a forefather of both Analytic and Continental philosophy. His claim to fame is the reintroduction of intentionality (the 'aboutness' of consciousness) to the modern philosophy of mind. This book offers interpretations of a central philosophical concept employed in the Brentano School.