From Metaphysics To Ethics

Author : Frank Jackson
Publisher : Clarendon Press
ISBN 13 : 0191519030
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book From Metaphysics to Ethics written by Frank Jackson and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1998-01-08 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frank Jackson champions the cause of conceptual analysis as a basic method of philosophical inquiry. In recent years conceptual analysis has been undervalued and, Jackson suggests, widely misunderstood; he argues that there is nothing especially mysterious about it and a whole range of important questions cannot be productively addressed without it. He anchors his argument in discussion of specific philosophical issues, starting with the metaphysical doctrine of physicalism and moving on, via free will, meaning, personal identity, motion and change, to the philosophy of colour and to ethics. The significance of different kinds of supervenience theses, Kripke and Putnam's work in the philosophy of modality and language, and the role of intuitions about possible cases receive detailed attention. Jackson concludes with a defence of a version of analytical descriptivism in ethics. In this way the book not only offers a methodological programme for philosophy, but also throws fascinating new light on some much-debated problems and their interrelations.

Author : Carol Rovane
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674726979
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Metaphysics and Ethics of Relativism written by Carol Rovane and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relativism is a hotly contested doctrine among philosophers, some of whom regard it as neither true nor false but simply incoherent. As Carol Rovane demonstrates in this analytical tour-de-force, the way to defend relativism is not initially by establishing its truth but by clarifying its content. The Metaphysics and Ethics of Relativism elaborates a doctrine of relativism that has a consistent logical, metaphysical, and practical significance. Relativism is worth debating, Rovane contends, because it bears directly on the moral choices we make in our lives. Three intuitive conceptions of relativism have been influential in philosophical discourse. These include the idea that certain unavoidable disagreements are irresolvable, leading to the conclusion that "both sides are right," and the idea that truth is always relative to context. But the most compelling, Rovane maintains, is the "alternatives intuition." Alternatives are truths that cannot be embraced together because they are not universal. Something other than logical contradiction excludes them. When this is so, logical relations no longer hold among all truth-value-bearers. Some truths will be irreconcilable between individuals even though they are valid in themselves. The practical consequence is that some forms of interpersonal engagement are confined within definite boundaries, and one has no choice but to view what lies beyond those boundaries with what Rovane calls "epistemic indifference." In a very real sense, some people inhabit different worlds--true in themselves, but closed off to belief from those who hold irreducibly incompatible truths.

Author : James Stacey Taylor
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199751137
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Metaphysics and Ethics of Death written by James Stacey Taylor and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Metaphysics and Ethics of Death brings together original essays that both address the fundamental questions of the metaphysics of death and explore the relationship between those questions and some of the areas of applied ethics in which they play a central role.

Author : Angus Ritchie
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199652511
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book From Morality to Metaphysics written by Angus Ritchie and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-22 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Angus Ritchie offers an argument for the existence of God, which is based on our most fundamental moral beliefs. He argues for the 'deliberative indispensability' of moral realism, and asserts that only theism can adequately explain our capacity for knowledge of objective moral truths.

Author : Kenneth A. Richman
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262264341
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.4X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ethics and the Metaphysics of Medicine written by Kenneth A. Richman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-06-18 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the philosophical and practical ethical implications of a definition of health as a state that allows us to reach our goals. Definitions of health and disease are of more than theoretical interest. Understanding what it means to be healthy has implications for choices in medical treatment, for ethically sound informed consent, and for accurate assessment of policies or programs. This deeper understanding can help us create more effective public policy for health and medicine. It is notable that such contentious legal initiatives as the Americans with Disability Act and the Patients' Bill of Rights fail to define adequately the medical terms on which their effectiveness depends. In Ethics and the Metaphysics of Medicine, Kenneth Richman develops an "embedded instrumentalist" theory of health and applies it to practical problems in health care and medicine, addressing topics that range from the philosophy of science to knee surgery. "Embedded instrumentalist" theories hold that health is a match between one's goals and one's ability to reach those goals, and that the relevant goals may vary from individual to individual. This captures the normative implications of the term health while avoiding problematic relativism. Richman's embedded instrumentalism differs from other theories of health in drawing a distinction between the health of individuals as biological organisms and the health of individuals as moral agents. This distinction illuminates many difficulties in patient-provider communication and helps us understand conflicts between promoting health and promoting ethically permissible behavior. After exploring, expanding, and defending this theory in the first part of the book, Richman examines its ethical implications, discussing such concerns as the connection between medical beneficence and respect for autonomy, patient-provider communication, living wills, and clinical education.

Author : Ricardo Salles
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN 13 : 019926130X
Total Pages : 559 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics in Ancient Thought written by Ricardo Salles and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2005-02-03 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading figures in ancient philosophy present new essays on themes from the work of Richard Sorabji, paying tribute to his great achievements and leading his ideas in fresh directions. Sorabji himself contributes to the volume with a fascinating 'intellectual autobiography'. Contributors Sylvia Berryman, Marcelo D. Boeri, Robert Bolton, Sarah Broadie, Myles Burnyeat, Gabriela Roxana Carone, V. Caston, Christopher Gill, Frans A. J. de Haas, Brad Inwood, Charles H. Kahn, A. A. Long, Mary Margaret McCabe, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, A. W. Price, Ricardo Salles, David Sedley, Bob Sharples, Richard Sorabji.

Author : Daniel Kolak
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1402030142
Total Pages : 679 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book I Am You written by Daniel Kolak and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-11-03 with total page 679 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Borders enclose and separate us. We assign to them tremendous significance. Along them we draw supposedly uncrossable boundaries within which we believe our individual identities begin and end, erecting the metaphysical dividing walls that enclose each one of us into numerically identical, numerically distinct, entities: persons. Do the borders between us - physical, psychological, neurological, causal, spatial, temporal, etc. - merit the metaphysical significance ordinarily accorded them? The central thesis of I Am You is that our borders do not signify boundaries between persons. We are all the same person. Variations on this heretical theme have been voiced periodically throughout the ages (the Upanishads, Averroës, Giordano Bruno, Josiah Royce, Schrödinger, Fred Hoyle, Freeman Dyson). In presenting his arguments, the author relies on detailed analyses of recent formal work on personal identity, especially that of Derek Parfit, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert Nozick, David Wiggins, Daniel C. Dennett and Thomas Nagel, while incorporating the views of Descartes, Leibniz, Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Kant, Husserl and Brouwer. His development of the implied moral theory is inspired by, and draws on, Rawls, Sidgwick, Kant and again Parfit. The traditional, commonsense view that we are each a separate person numerically identical to ourselves over time, i.e., that personal identity is closed under known individuating and identifying borders - what the author calls Closed Individualism - is shown to be incoherent. The demonstration that personal identity is not closed but open points collectively in one of two new directions: either there are no continuously existing, self-identical persons over time in the sense ordinarily understood - the sort of view developed by philosophers as diverse as Buddha, Hume and most recently Derek Parfit, what the author calls Empty Individualism - or else you are everyone, i.e., personal identity is not closed under known individuating and identifying borders, what the author calls Open Individualism. In making his case, the author: - offers a new explanation both of consciousness and of self-consciousness - constructs a new theory of Self - explains psychopathologies (e.g. multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia) - shows Open Individualism to be the best competing explanation of who we are - provides the metaphysical foundations for global ethics. The book is intended for philosophers and the philosophically inclined - physicists, mathematicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, linguists, computer scientists, economists, and communication theorists. It is accessible to graduate students and advanced undergraduates.

Author : E. Wyschogrod
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9401020442
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Emmanuel Levinas written by E. Wyschogrod and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emmanuel Levinas recounts the main events of his life in a brief essay, "Signature," appended to a collection of essays on social, political and religious themes entitled Dillicile Uberti. He was born in I905 in Lithu ania and in I9I7, while living in the Ukraine, experienced the collapse of the old regime in Russia. In I923 he came to the University of Strasbourg where Charles Blondel, Halbwachs, Pradines, Carteron and later Gueroult were teaching. He was deeply influenced by those of his teachers who had been adolescents during the time of the Dreyfus affair and for whom this issue assumed critical importance. Continuing his studies at Freiburg from I928-I929, he served an apprenticeship in phenomenology with Jean Hering. Subsequent encounters with Leon Brunschwicg and regular conversations with Gabriel Marcel served to distinguish, to sharpen and bring into the foreground, his own unique point of view. He also attests a long friendship with Jean Wahl. To gether with Henri Nerson he undertook a study of Talmudic sources under the guidance of a teacher who communicated the traditional Jewish mode of exegesis. It is no accident that Levinas begins his autobiographical account, which is indeed no more than a spare outline of events and formative influences, with the information that the Hebrew Bible directed his thinking from the time of his earliest child hood in Lithuania.

Author : Saitya Brata Das
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 9811510903
Total Pages : 198 pages
Book Rating : 4.08/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Death, Time and the Other written by Saitya Brata Das and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-01-27 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the limits of metaphysics and the question of the possibility of ethics in this context. It is divided into six chapters, the first of which broadens readers’ understanding of difference as difference with specific reference to the works of Hegel. The second chapter discusses the works of Emmanuel Lévinas and the question of the ethical. In turn, the concepts of sovereignty and the eternal return are discussed in chapters three and four, while chapter five poses the question of literature in a new way. The book concludes with chapter six. The book represents an important contribution to the field of contemporary philosophical debates on the possibility of ethics beyond all possible metaphysical and political closures. As such, it will be of interest to scholars and researchers in both the humanities and social sciences. Beyond the academic world, the book will also appeal to readers (journalists, intellectuals, social activists, etc.) for whom the question of the ethical is the decisive question of our time.

Author : Douglas Cairns
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 0748631887
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pursuing the Good written by Douglas Cairns and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-21 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, the fourth in the Edinburgh Leventis Studies series, comprises a selection of papers from the conference held in Edinburgh March 2005 in conjunction with Professor Terry Penner's tenure of the A. G. Leventis Visiting Research Chair in Greek. It brings together contributions from leading Plato scholars from Britain, Europe and North America on a closely defined topic central to Plato's thought and to Ancient Philosophy--Plato's Form of the Good. The importance of the collection lies in the combination and presentation in one place of a range of different approaches to the good in Plato's Republic, and different solutions to the problems posed and proposed by these approaches. The two central issues, which form an underlying thread throughout the collection, are: first whether Plato's Republic is centred on what is good for individual humans, or on some quasi-moral good; and secondly, what the Form of the Good is. Pursuing the Good goes beyond recent studies in the field, and will appeal to classicists and philosophers alike. To the advanced student, it represents a wide-ranging introduction to central issues of Plato's philosophy; for the academic it will provide stimulus through antithetical and controversial solutions to questions old and new.