"Harrison's marriage of philosophy and literary criticism does genuine and novel work." — Journal of Aesthetics and Art CriticismHow can literature, which consists of nothing more than the description of imaginary events and situations, offer any insight into the human condition? Can mere words illuminate something that we call "reality"?Bernard Harrison answers these questions in this profoundly original work that seeks to re-enfranchise reality in ...

Deciphering the New Antisemitism addresses the increasing prevalence of antisemitism on a global scale. Antisemitism takes on various forms in all parts of the world, and the essays in this wide-ranging volume deal with many of them: European antisemitism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and efforts to demonize and delegitimize Israel. Contributors are an international group of scholars who clarify the cultural, intellectual, political, and religious condition...

Today's highly fraught historical moment brings a resurgence of antisemitism. Antisemitic incidents of all kinds are on the rise across the world, including hate speech, the spread of neo-Nazi graffiti and other forms of verbal and written threats, the defacement of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, and acts of murderous terror.Contending with Antisemitism in a Rapidly Changing Political Climate is an edited collection of 18 essays that address antisemitism in its new and ...

Recently, Jewish voices have begun to warn against a 'new anti-Semitism' fueled by moral concerns about Israel. Opponents have retorted that opposition to 'Zionism' is by no means anti-Semitic. This book, by a non-Jewish analytic philosopher, assesses the relative merits of these opposed views and offers a detailed examination of the moral and intellectual credentials of the widespread current of opinion whose growth underlies both.

Interpretation, Relativism, and Identity: Essays on the Philosophy of Michael Krausz addresses three major philosophical themes: interpretation, relativism, and identity. It does so by focusing on Krausz’s distinctive exploration of the relationship between interpretation and ontology, the varieties of relativism, and the interpretive dimension of identity construction.Throughout the years, Krausz has participated in exchanges between people who embrace opposing views about reality...

In recent years Western countries have seen a proliferation of antisemitic material in social media, and attacks on Jews such as that on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. Much of this has stemmed, not from personal hostility to Jews on the part of this or that individual, but from a resurgence in groups at both ends of politics of the ancient delusion that "the Jews" collectively dominate world affairs and lie at the root of all the world's evils.In Blaming the ...

Noam Chomsky is one of the most influential thinkers of our time, yet his views are often misunderstood. In this previously unpublished series of interviews, Chomsky discusses his iconoclastic and important ideas concerning language, human nature and politics. In dialogue with James McGilvray, Professor of Philosophy at McGill University, Chomsky takes up a wide variety of topics – the nature of language, the philosophies of language and mind, morality and universality, science and common ...

In 1968, Michel Foucault agreed to a series of interviews with critic Claude Bonnefoy, which were to be published in book form. Bonnefoy wanted a dialogue with Foucault about his relationship to writing rather than about the content of his books. The project was abandoned, but a transcript of the initial interview survived and is now being published for the first time in English. In this brief and lively exchange, Foucault reflects on how he approached the written word throughout his life,...

What do the rules of logic say about the meanings of the symbols they govern? In this book, James W. Garson examines the inferential behaviour of logical connectives (such as 'and', 'or', 'not' and 'if … then'), whose behaviour is defined by strict rules, and proves definitive results concerning exactly what those rules express about connective truth conditions. He explores the ways in which, depending on circumstances, a system of rules may provide no interpretation of a connective at all...

Context and Communication offers an introduction to a central theme in the study of language: the various ways in which what we say (or ask, or think) depends on the context of speech and thought. The period since 1970 has produced a vast literature on this topic, both by philosophers and by linguists. It is one of the areas of philosophy (and linguistics) where most progress has been made over the last few decades. This book explores some of the central data, questions, concepts,...

A Wittgensteinian Way with Paradoxes examines how some of the classic philosophical paradoxes that have so puzzled philosophers over the centuries can be dissolved. Read argues that paradoxes such as the Sorites, Russell’s Paradox and the paradoxes of time travel do not, in fact, need to be solved. Rather, using a resolute Wittgensteinian ‘therapeutic’ method, the book explores how virtually all apparent philosophical paradoxes can be diagnosed and dissolved through examining their conditi...

This volume presents a selection of the philosophical essays which Richard Rorty wrote during the first decade of his career, and complements four previous volumes of his papers published by Cambridge University Press. In this long neglected body of work, which many leading philosophers still consider to be his best, Rorty develops his views on the nature and scope of philosophy in a manner which supplements and elucidates his definitive statement on these matters in Philosophy and the Mir...