Books published by Open Court Publishing Co ,U.S.

An exploration of vegetarianism in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The author attempts to answer the question, "are Christians morally obligated to be vegetarians?", through readings of key biblical texts pertaining to dietary customs, vegetarianism and animal rights.

If you know that someone is writing the script of your life, can you really be a hero? Deadpool is the super-anti-hero who knows he's in a comic book. His unique situation and blood-stained history give rise to many philosophical puzzles. Are his actions predetermined by the writers, or does he trick the writers into scripting his choices? And what happens when Deadpool breaks into the real world to kill the writers? Deadpool challenges us to think outside the box, and this collection of essays examines the profound implications of this most contradictory and perplexing comic book character.

Hannibal Lecter, the subject of best-selling novels, movies, and the acclaimed TV series Hannibal, is one of pop culture's most compelling characters. In Hannibal Lecter and Philosophy, 16 philosophers come at Hannibal the way he comes at his victims - from unexpected angles and with plenty of surprises.What does the relationship between Hannibal and those who know him - particularly FBI investigator Will Graham - tell us about the nature of friendship? Does Hannibal confer benefits on society by eliminating people who don't live up to his high aesthetic standards? Can upsetting experiences in early childhood turn you into a serial killer? Why are we enthralled by someone who exercises god-like control over situations and people? Does it make any difference morally that a killer eats his victims? Can a murder be a work of art?Several chapters look at the mind of this proud and accomplished killer, psychiatrist, and gourmet cook. Is he a sociopath or a psychopath, or are these the same? Is he lacking in empathy? Does his moral blindness give him compensating abilities, the way literally blind people gain heightened senses? Does it harm us that we are drawn into Hannibal's world by identifying with him?

Offers a sympathetic, philosophical look at the supervillains. This title delves into the dark nature of supervillainy, examines the boundaries of good and evil, offers helpful advice to prospective supervillains, and untangles diabolical puzzles of identity and consciousness.

Ever since it was first unleashed in 1818 the story of Victor Frankenstein and his reanimated, stitched-together corpse has inspired intense debate. Can organic life be reanimated using electricity or genetic manipulation? If so, could Frankenstein's monster really teach itself to read and speak as Mary Shelley imagined? Do monsters have rights, or responsibilities to those who would as soon kill them? What is it about music that so affects Frankenstein's monster, or any of us? What does Mel Brook's Frau Blucher say to contemporary eco-feminism? Why are some "Frankenstein"'s flops and others historic successes? Is there a "true" Frankenstein? Why are children, but not adults, drawn to Shelley's monster? And what is a "monster," anyway? "Frankenstein and Philosophy" calls 25 philosophers to stitch together these and other questions as they apply to history's greatest horror franchise. Some chapters treat the "Frankenstein" films, others the original novel, and yet others the many comic books, novels, and modern adaptations. Together they pay tribute to perhaps the most enduring pop culture icon and the fundamental fears, hopes, and puzzles it raises.

Phenomenology is one of the most important and influential philosophical movements of the last one hundred years. It began in 1900, with the publication of a massive two-volume work, Logical Investigations, by a Czech-German mathematician, Edmund Husserl. It proceeded immediately to exert a strong influence on both philosophy and the social sciences. For example, phenomenology provided the central inspiration for the existentialist movement, as represented by such figures as Martin Heidegger in Germany and Jean-Paul Sartre in France. Subsequent intellectual currents in Europe, when they have not claimed phenomenology as part of their ancestry, have defined themselves in opposition to phenomenology. Thus, to give just one example, the first two works of Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, were devoted to criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenological works. In the English-speaking world, where “analytic philosophy” dominates, phenomenology has recently emerged as a hot topic after decades of neglect. This has resulted from a dramatic upswing in interest in consciousness, the condition that makes all experience possible. Since the special significance of phenomenology is that it investigates consciousness, analytic philosophers have begun to turn to it as an underutilized resource. For the same reason, Husserl’s work is now widely studied by cognitive scientists. The current revival of interest in phenomenology also stems from the recognition that not every kind of question can be approached by means of experimental techniques. Not all questions are scientific in that sense. Thus, if there is to be knowledge in logic, mathematics, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, epistemology (theory of knowledge), psychology (from the inside), and the study of consciousness, among others, another method is clearly needed. Phenomenology is an attempt to rectify this. Its aim is to focus on the world as given in experience, and to describe it with unprecedented care, rigor, subtlety, and completeness. This applies not only to the objects of sense experience, but to all phenomena: moral, aesthetic, political, mathematical, and so forth. One can avoid the obscure problem of the real, independent existence of the objects of experience in these domains by focusing instead on the objects, as experienced, themselves, along with the acts of consciousness which disclose them. Phenomenology thus opens up an entirely new field of investigation, never previously explored. Rather than assuming, or trying to discern, what exists outside the realm of the mental, and what causal relations pertain to these extra-mental entities, we can study objects strictly as they are given, that is, as they appear to us in experience. This book explains what phenomenology is and why it is important. It focuses primarily on the works and ideas of Husserl, but also discusses important later thinkers, giving special emphasis to those whose contributions are most relevant to contemporary concerns. Finally, while Husserl’s greatest contributions were to the philosophical foundations of logic, mathematics, knowledge, and science, this book also addresses extensively the relatively neglected contribution of phenomenology to value theory, especially ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.

By many accounts, HBO's The Wire was and remains the greatest and most important television drama of all time. The Wire was able to reveal the overlapping, criss-crossing, and colliding realities that shape - if not control - the people, institutions, and culture of the modern American city. This book celebrates this show's realism.

Shows readers that the swift ascent of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons to worldwide popularity event in popular culture since the invention of the motion picture. This title explores what D&D has to teach us about ethics and about how results from philosophical study of morality that can enrich and transform the game itself.

During the academic year 1940-1941, several giants of analytic philosophy congregated at Harvard, holding regular private meetings, with Carnap, Tarski, and Quine. "Carnap, Tarski, and Quine at Harvard" allows the reader to act as a fly on the wall for their conversations. Carnap took detailed notes during his year at Harvard. This book includes both a German transcription of these shorthand notes and an English translation in the appendix section. Carnap's notes cover a wide range of topics, but surprisingly, the most prominent question is: If the number of physical items in the universe is finite, what form should scientific discourse take? This question is closely connected to an abiding philosophical problem: What is the relationship between the logico-mathematical realm and the material realm? Carnap, Tarski, and Quine's attempts to answer this question involve issues central to philosophy today.This book focuses on three such issues: nominalism, the unity of science, and analyticity. In short, the book reconstructs the lines of argument represented in these Harvard discussions, discusses their historical significance (especially Quine's break from Carnap), and relates them when possible to contemporary treatments of these issues.

In Volume Two in Open Court's "Creative Marxism" series readers have a rare opportunity to eavesdrop on a provocative, wide-ranging conversation between two lively intellects. "Marxism and the Call of the Future" reproduces an actual discussion between Bill Martin, a DePaul University philosophy professor, and Bob Avakian, the controversial leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Though the scope and relevance of Marxism is at the heart of this spirited exchange, the two also offer up a sharp-witted critique of George W. Bush and touch on animal rights, The Simpsons, secularism and religion, Bob Dylan, and the post-9/11 agenda of the United States.

Bringing together two high-powered pastimes - the sport of baseball and the academic discipline of philosophy - Eric Bronson asks 18 young professors to provide their profound analysis of some aspect of baseball. The results offer surprisingly deep insights into this most American of games.

In On Disgust, pioneering philosopher Aurel Kolnai (1905-1973) draws on Husserl's phenomenological method to examine the experience of disgust. He distinguishes disgust from other emotions of aversion such as fear and contempt and shows how it relates to the five senses. Kolnai argues that disgust is never related to inorganic or nonbiological matter, and that its arousal by moral objects has an underlying similarity with its arousal by organic material: a particular combination of life and death. This book also includes an article published shortly before the author's death titled "The Standard Modes of Aversion: Fear, Disgust, and Hatred."

This work argues that what we now think of as "reason" or "objective thinking" is not a natural product of the existence of an enlarged brain. Rather, it is a way of learning to use the brain that runs counter to the natural characteristics involved in being an animal, a mammal and a primate.

This volume captures the philospher and public icon's battles with injustice, ignorance and cruelty through more than 400 letters. They express his views on a wide range of subjects and tell us much about the social and political history of the time.

These essays examine the Confucian view towards women and whether old and modern attitudes and beliefs about women are a necessary implication of its general philosophy. The collection also compares ancient and modern opportunites for Chinese women in societal contributions and personal growth.

Presenting a wide range of views and strategies, The Green Halo analyzes the problematic relations between humans and the rest of the natural world. The author looks at the views of thinkers including John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Al Gore, and suggests alternative ways to view nature, assign it value, and respond to ecological crises.

The TQM movement is rapidly taking hold in the educational system, but so far it has stopped at the classroom door. This book is a manual for the next stage: the application of TQM methods in supervising and evaluating teachers, so that quality teaching becomes an attainable goal.