This book, first published in 1987, investigates what distinguishes the part of human behaviour that is action (praxis) from the part that is not. The distinction was clearly drawn by Socrates, and developed by Aristotle and the medievals, but key elements of their work became obscured in modern philosophy, and were not fully recovered when, under Wittgenstein’s influence, the theory of action was revived in analytical philosophy. This study aims to recover those elements, and to analyse t...

"Let us . . . nominate this the most important theoretical work on ethical or moral theory since John Rawls's Theory of Justice. If you have philosophical inclinations and want a good workout, this conscientious scrutiny of moral assumptions and expressions will be most rewarding. Donagan explores ways of acting in the Hebrew-Christian context, examines them in the light of natural law and rational theories, and proposes that formal patterns for conduct can emerge. All this is tig...

"The Analysis of Mind" by Bertrand Russell is a philosophical book that explores the nature of the mind and consciousness. In this work, Russell argues that mental phenomena can be analyzed and understood through the principles of logic and mathematics. He posits that the mind can be divided into two categories: the "conscious mind" and the "unconscious mind". The conscious mind is the part of the mind that we are aware of, while the unconscious mind is the part that we are not aware of bu...

Prolegomenon (plural "prolegomena") refers to any critical introduction or essay at the start of a book.Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics is one of the shorter works by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. It was published in 1783, two years after the first edition of his Critique of Pure Reason.Prolegomena contains an overview and defense of the Critique's main conclusions, sometimes by arguments Kant had not used in the Critique. Kant characterizes his more accessible approach here ...

Philosophy may be said to contain the principles of the rational cognition that concepts afford us of things (not merely, as with logic, the principles of the form of thought in general irrespective of the objects), and, thus interpreted, the course, usually adopted, of dividing it into theoretical and practical is perfectly sound. But this makes imperative a specific distinction on the part of the concepts by which the principles of this rational cognition get their object assigned to the...

Regarded as the central figure of modern philosophy, Immanuel Kant produced comprehensive and systematic work in the theory of knowledge, ethics and aesthetics, which greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy. In his major work, ‘The Critique of Pure Reason’, Kant analyses the relationship between reason and human experience, moving beyond the failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. This comprehensive eBook presents Kant’s collected works, with numerous illustrations...

This comprehensive anthology draws together classic and contemporary readings by leading philosophers on epistemology. Ideal for any philosophy student, it will prove essential reading for epistemology courses, and is designed to complement Robert Audi's textbook Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 1998).Themes covered include, perception, memory, inductive inference, reason and the a priori, the architecture of knowledge, skepticism, the analysis of knowl...

A central theme throughout the impressive series of philosophical books and articles Stephen Toulmin has published since 1948 is the way in which assertions and opinions concerning all sorts of topics, brought up in everyday life or in academic research, can be rationally justified. Is there one universal system of norms, by which all sorts of arguments in all sorts of fields must be judged, or must each sort of argument be judged according to its own norms? In The Uses of Argument (1958) ...

In 1781, Immanuel Kant published his first and most famous work, the “Critique of Pure Reason”. To the German philosopher’s dismay, the work was at first poorly received and largely misunderstood by his readers. As a result, two years later Kant produced his “Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics that will be Able to Present Itself as a Science” to serve as an introduction to the “Critique”. He restated the main ideas of his philosophy in what Schopenhauer, in 1819, declared was “the fines...

Edmund Husserl is the founder of phenomenology and the Logical Investigations is his most famous work. It had a decisive impact on twentieth century philosophy and is one of few works to have influenced both continental and analytic philosophy.This is the first time both volumes have been available in paperback. They include a new introduction by Dermot Moran, placing the Investigations in historical context and bringing out their contemporary philosophical importa...

First published in 1910, Philosophical Essays is one of Bertrand Russell’s earliest works and marks an important period in the evolution of thought of one of the world’s most influential thinkers. This selection of seven essays displays Russell's incisiveness and brilliance of exposition in the examination of ethical subjects and the nature of truth. Insightful and highly accessible, these essays are as illuminating today as they were on first publication.