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The most important work by one of America's greatest twentieth-century philosophers, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is both the epitome of Wilfrid Sellars' entire philosophical system and a key document in the history of philosophy. First published in essay form in 1956, it helped bring about a sea change in analytic philosophy. It broke the link, which had bound Russell and Ayer to Locke and Hume--the doctrine of "knowledge by acquaintance." Sellars' attack on the Myth of the Given in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind was a decisive move in turning analytic philosophy away from the foundationalist motives of the logical empiricists and raised doubts about the very idea of "epistemology."

With an introduction by Richard Rorty to situate the work within the history of recent philosophy, and with a study guide by Robert Brandom, this publication of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind makes a difficult but indisputably significant figure in the development of analytic philosophy clear and comprehensible to anyone who would understand that philosophy or its history.

Customer Reviews (5)

a difficult read, not recommendable to every philosophy student
The review is just on Sellars' essay. Rorty as usual hasn't said much about things. So if you know Sellars via Rorty, drop this one and read Derrida instead. Brandom is still quite interesting, but there are many others who want to talk about him.

From the first time I read the essay, I was wondering why Sellars's text is so ambiguous and incomprehensible. He studied mathematics before he came to study philosophy. But unlike Quine, you saw not even a vestige of mathematical elegance in his clumsy writing. His way of reasoning is just way too un-analytical. Soon I came to the conclusion that he knew very little of contemporary logic. Philosophy is a very funny discipline. Sometimes, the difficulty in understanding a philosophical argument points to the difficulty at the heart of the real philosophical problems and sometimes, it results from a confused way of thinking about matters. It takes time for readers to be able to determine from which the difficulty originates. Initially, I thought the difficulty in reading Sellars is a genuine one, but I found later that most of the time it wasn't.

In many cases, as one reviewer below says, he simply mis-reasons and in an awkward way. The way he construes regress argument in memory judgment is one such example.

Other times, he simply confuses himself or omits argument all together. In SS20 for example, after a long discussion on conceptual priority of the "is" over the "looks" , he proposes and defends conceptual holism against adverbial theory; which is a variant of epistemological foundationalism. Adverbialists such as Chisholm characteristically endorse the foundationalist thesis that there are some basic beliefs which justify all other non-basic empirical beliefs. They think perceptual beliefs of the kind "x looks R to me", "x appears R to me" are candidates for such basic beliefs. This thesis, problematic as it may sound too Cartesian, by itself doesn't lead them to commit to conceptual atomism. It only tells us that the belief statements of the form " x looks R" are justificatory prior to belief statement of the form " x is R". The thesis about epistemic justification doesn't tell us anything about the conceptual priority of one term over the other, so defending conceptual holism can be perfectly compatible with the position Sellars argues against. Sellars seems to conflate epistemological question with conceptual question here. There are mistakes of this kind here and there in this essay. In another place, he simply didn't argue well enough. He commits to a semantic thesis that a word's meaning is its functional role to defend his "psychological nominalism". This thesis which is now called "functional semantic theory" is itself a very controversial thesis and you need a book-length argument to just defend the view.( btw, which is what Brandom was trying to do in recent years) But Sellars simply sketched out the basic idea and did no defense on his claim.

Even though Sellars' original presentation is far from clear, the idea of "myth of the given" is quite interesting nontheless. The idea is roughly that any mental items (propositional or non-propositional) that play epistemically justificational role in justifying empirically significant statements couldn't be independently given. It depends for its justification on other propositions. No candidate of the given could serve the role it was meant to serve. So on this construal, not only sense-data can't be given, but judgments such as "it looks red to me" or "I have a pain in my stomach" can't be given as well. So his critique on the myth of the given is clearly broader than any arguments against sense-data theory and probably broader than private language argument. The problem is that it may be too broad. If you endorse Sellars' critique of MOG along with his psychological nominalism which states that any kind of awareness (conscious or unconscious) is linguistic affair, then you need to deny any awareness of pain on the part of creatures who don't use language-like systems like us. Not only that he also had to expel sensations all together from the realm of reasons, hence from objects of awareness. (he prefers to use the term "sense impression" or "direct experience" instead of sensation in this text) and thinks of it as "postulated" instead of "directly experienced". According to this view, then, phenomenal quality such as pain has obviously no place in our realm of reasons because it contains no propositional content, let alone linguistic content, but can we seriously claim that we are not even aware of them because all awareness is propositional in form?

Warning: The text doesn't include the footnotes Sellars added in 1960's. The added footnotes are significant enough for undertanding subsequent debates between Sellars and his critiques (Chisholm, Firth etc). If you want a full text of this essay with added footnotes, get "Science, Perception and Reality" instead.

Brilliant and rewarding
I have come back to this essay by Sellars again and again for over thirty years, and have never failed to impressed and inspired. Sellars can always get me to think at a deeper level than I'm used to. Second only perhaps to Wittgenstein in influence, Sellars is a philosopher's philosopher: understanding him requires a thorough grounding in the history of philosophy, and this essay in particular takes it for granted that you understand 20th century empricism and "sense data" theories pretty well. Even so, the writing style can be both dense and difficult, but reading it aloud can untangle any number of tricky passages. If you're not quite so well versed in history of philosophy, a similar critique can be found in J.L. Austin's "Sense and Sensibilia," which is more accessible but not nearly as profound. In the course of showing the futility of finding incorrigibile foundations for empirical knowledge in sense experience, Sellars simultaneously develops a strictly behavioristic psychology that legitimizes all the goodies, all the mental vocabulary, that folks like Skinner forbade. A tour de force unequalled in 80 years. Bob Brandom's explicatory essay is very helpful, and untwists several tricky knots in the text.

Cave!
I do not understand why it is always said that Sellars' language was sodifficult. I found his philosophical style quite straight-on.Unfortunately, Sellars' main work is punctuated by some passages ofsuperficial and/or incorrect reasoning, at which passages some may assumethat they do not understand Sellars' argumentation - though it "has tobe profound" (because of Sellars' reputation). The most importantissue in this essay is the impossibility of reporting sense impressionswithout using language (with all implications that come along with that),and the repercussions of this circumstance on the philosophy of logicalempiricism in its early stage (though Sellars obviously thinks his ideasimpact on all forms of empiricism, which is not true). Along that line,Sellars has many good points that should be considered in the philosophy ofscience and in common sense reasoning, yet his reputed final dismantling ofthe "myth" of the given never takes place; in Sellars intentions,maybe, but his arguments are a far cry from being a stringent refutation.They are simply too superficial and too colloquial for that. (Cf. Putnam'smodel-theoretic arguments against realism, for a contrast.) What is reallyunfortunate for Sellars' essay is that, in this edition, it is framed byRorty and Brandom. The philosophical humorist Rorty has contributed aforeword in an attempt to assimilate Sellars serious philosophical projectinto his radical-relativist historicizing outlook of philosophy, thuscompletely misleading the unknowing reader. The bright, but misguided,Brandom offers a study guide, which is no study guide, but an attempt todirect the reader at those aspects of Sellars' essay, which Brandom's owninferentialist philosophy is supposed to stem from. Unfortunately, theseaspects are exactly the most questionable. So, while Sellars' essay is aprofitable classic of analytic philosophy, the reader should be warned toread Rorty's foreword and Brandom's study guide cautiously and criticallyand to thoroughly consider, if these really reflect Sellars' essaycorrectly.

deep, difficult, essential
"Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" is an essential epistemological text of the twentieth century. It is difficult: each sentence is difficult. Sellars is said to have shown the existence of a private language by writing in one. The guide by Brandom does not much clarify and simplify the argument of Sellars for two reasons. It is impossible to do this. And Brandom wants to and does contribute significantly to Sellars scholarship. Sellars writes for the professional philosopher. If you plan to be such, or if you want to encounter philosophy at its most profound, you should study the book.

A difficult, controversial work in philosophy
There are two areas to comment on with regards to this printing of "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" (EPM).The first is the presentation style and the second is the content.On the presentation:Rorty's introduction is very helpful in preparing one to read the book.The large print will be a welcome relief to anyone who has squinted at the pages of *Science, Perception and Reality* which also includes EPM.However, the omission of the footnotes Sellars added in 1963 is very odd.Also, the endnote markers are not superscripted but merely placed in parentheses which can be confusing since at other times a number in () is not referring to an endnote but rather to a numbered paragraph.Be forewarned that Brandom's study guide is not exegetical as one might hope.It is an interpretation of the work.On the content:This book is definitely not for beginners, and one can become quickly annoyed at Sellars' use of cliches as references to philosophical systems.Also, Sellars will make reference to specific philosophers without actually naming them, making it difficult to figure out just what specific advocation of a view he is rejecting (See for example Section 30).Other times, he will specifically mention who he has in mind, such as in Sections 8-9 when he brings up the name of A.J. Ayer.It should go without saying that the claims Sellars makes are by no means easy to grasp and they are even less easy to accept.A note on my low ranking of this book:I gave it a 4 mostly because of Sellars' difficult writing style, and not because of the shortcomings in presentation mentioned above. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The perfect companion to Sellars' essay
If you have struggled, like many of us have, to understand Sellars' essay, this is the book for you.

I worked through Sellars' essay using this book as a companion volume, and it was incredibly helpful.

Why does this single essay deserve a guide? First, because of its importance. In this essay you will find precursors to many modern strands of thought, such as the 'language of thought' hypothesis, coherence theories of justification, and even pragmatic theories of meaning.

Unfortunately, the essay is also very difficult to understand. Sellars assumed working familiarity with the main currents in philosophy as understood by a philosopher in the 1950s. He also assumes familiarity with historical figures such as Kant. Finally, even if you have said familiarity, the essay is dense and sometimes uses rather tortured prose that can be very difficult to understand.

So, if you find yourself stumbling to understand 'Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind', buy this book immediately. You will be very glad you did. It is extremely clearly written, and it removes the requirement that you have a degree in philosophy to understand Sellars' seminal essay.

Sellars and Clarity
This is a good book which would serve well as an introduction to Sellars's dense "EPM."It provides background information on sense-datum theories, a contextual overview, clarification (i.e., shows the arguments) in each section of the text, and offers insightful commentary on each section."EPM" is included at the end of the text.

I highly recommend this book, along with Sellars's other work, and McDowell's Mind and World.

what is this all about?
the commentary writers are offering here is crowded with the details of Sellar's essay and quite at no point supplies a general foothold to make Sellar's work and what's original in it understandable (which I finally can not appreciate how philosophically original it is). ... Read more

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If there is a movement or school that epitomizes analytic philosophy in the middle of the twentieth century, it is logical empiricism. Logical empiricists created a scientifically and technically informed philosophy of science, established mathematical logic as a topic in and tool for philosophy, and initiated the project of formal semantics. Accounts of analytic philosophy written in the middle of the twentieth century gave logical empiricism a central place in the project. The second wave of interpretative accounts was constructed to show how philosophy should progress, or had progressed, beyond logical empiricism. The essays survey the formative stages of logical empiricism in central Europe and its acculturation in North America, discussing its main topics, and achievements and failures, in different areas of philosophy of science, and assessing its influence on philosophy, past, present, and future. ... Read more

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This ebook is complete with linked footnotes, linked Index and linked Table of content making navigation quicker and easier.

The present volume is an attempt to carry out a plan which William James is known to have formed several years before his death. In 1907 he collected reprints in an envelope which he inscribed with the title ‘Essays in Radical Empiricism’; and he also had duplicate sets of these reprints bound, under the same title, and deposited for the use of students in the general Harvard Library, and in the Philosophical Library in Emerson Hall.

Two years later Professor James published The Meaning of Truth and A Pluralistic Universe, and inserted in these volumes several of the articles which he had intended to use in the ‘Essays in Radical Empiricism.’ Whether he would nevertheless have carried out his original plan, had he lived, cannot be certainly known. Several facts, however, stand out very clearly. In the first place, the articles included in the original plan but omitted from his later volumes are indispensable to the understanding of his other writings. To these articles he repeatedly alludes. Thus, in The Meaning of Truth (p. 127), he says: “This statement is probably excessively obscure to any one who has not read my two articles ‘Does Consciousness Exist?’ and ‘A World of Pure Experience.’” Other allusions have been indicated in the present text. In the second place, the articles originally brought together as ‘Essays in Radical Empiricism’ form a connected whole. Not only were most of them written consecutively within a period of two years, but they contain numerous cross-references. In the third place, Professor James regarded ‘radical empiricism’ as an independent doctrine. This he asserted expressly: “Let me say that there is no logical connexion between pragmatism, as I understand it, and a doctrine which I have recently set forth as ‘radical empiricism.’ The latter stands on its own feet. One may entirely reject it and still be a pragmatist.” (Pragmatism, 1907, Preface, p. ix.) Finally, Professor James came toward the end of his life to regard ‘radical empiricism’ as more fundamental and more important than ‘pragmatism.’ In the Preface to The Meaning of Truth (1909), the author gives the following explanation of his desire to continue, and if possible conclude, the controversy over pragmatism: “I am interested in another doctrine in philosophy to which I give the name of radical empiricism, and it seems to me that the establishment of the pragmatist theory of truth is a step of first-rate importance in making radical empiricism prevail” ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Radical Excursion into Extreme Empiricism
For the serious James scholar, this book is indispensible. For those of you who are not too familiar with Jame's ideas and their background, this book is probably too much - and too boring at that. Even for scholars of epistemology, this book can be rather frustrating. Originally written for his grad students at Harvard, the book lacks much in the way of context, and it is completely theoretical. Furthermore, it is filled with many untranslated passages, from German to Latin. I gave the book four stars because it could use some editing. This is the modern era: Latin is dead - even for the most serious philosopher - and German is no longer the language of Philosophy. The passages should be translated, and some of the more abstract essays should come with introductions. That said, the book is still a valuable contribution to empirical epistemology, laying out James of view of "radical empiricism" - where subjects and objects collide. Indeed, the book itself is a pure experience! ... Read more

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A new direction in philosophy
Between 1920 and 1940 logical empiricism reset the direction of philosophy of science and much of the rest of Anglo-American philosophy. It began as a relatively organized movement centered on the Vienna Circle, and like-minded philosophers elsewhere, especially in Berlin. As Europe drifted into the Nazi era, several important figures, especially Carnap and Neurath, also found common ground in their liberal politics and radical social agenda. Together, the logical empiricists set out to reform traditional philosophy with a new set of doctrines more firmly grounded in logic and science.

Criticism and decline
Because of Nazi persecution, most of the European adherents of logical empiricism moved to the United States in the late 1930s. During the 1940s, many of their most cherished tenets became targets of criticism from outsiders as well as from within their own ranks. Philosophers of science in the late 1950s and 1960s rejected logical empiricism and, starting in the 1970s, presented such alternative programs such as scientific realism with evolutionary epistemology.

A resurgence of interest
During the early 1980s, philosophers and historians of philosophy began to study logical empiricism as an important movement. Unlike their predecessors in the 1960s-for whom the debate over logical empiricism now seems to have been largely motivated by professional politics-these philosopher no longer have to take positions for or against logical empiricism. The result has been a more balanced view of that movement, its achievements, its failures, and its influence.

Hard-to-find core writings now available
This collection makes available a selection of the most influential and representative writings of the logical empiricists, important contemporary criticisms of their doctrines, their responses, as well as the recent reappraisals. Introductions to each volume examine the articles in historical context and provide important background information that is vital to a full understanding of the issues discussed. They outline prevalent trends, identifying leading figures and summarize their positions and reasoning, as well as those of opposing thinkers. ... Read more

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Learn about Deleuze the right way, not the easy way
Many, many silly things have been written by and about Gilles Deleuze; by comparison Bryant's book stands out as a beacon of sense, clarity, youth truth beauty and all the other great things there are. Just buy it.

If you need to be further convinced: he reads Deleuze in the light of Kant, rather than as a Nietzschean 'everything-is-power-and-we-must- fight-the-forces-of-ressentiment' type. He takes the philosophy of difference given in 'Difference and Repetition' and 'The Logic of Sense' to be an answer to the problem of the Kantian passivity of reception. For Deleuze, Kant gives up on the critical project by not asking what makes the given of receptivity possible. Although Kant shows the transcendental conditions for the possibility of experience (being the conceptual determination of intuitions) he doesn't show the transcendental conditions for *real* experience: to do so would be to give the conditions for intuitions, or receptivity. Deleuze's answer to this question, what allows the given to be given, is Difference, which is located in a constellation of terms: Idea, structure, problems and so on.

Bryant reads 'experience' primarily in terms of the individuation of objects, it is individuation that difference explains (that is, how object x can be said to differ from object y). Deleuze takes previous philosophies to be incoherent with regard to individuation, because they take the individuation of an object to be dependent upon something external to it. Empiricists can only say 'this x is this red because it isn't that slightly different red;' Kantians can only say 'we can say this is this because our concept and intuition match up here.' Both are cases of 'representation,' according to which individuation is an effect of the subject rather than the object. But both types of philosophy are unable to link subject and object after accounting for individuation in this way, and so fail in their task.

So all philosophies which are tied to the Image of Thought have internal difficulties. But this isn't merely a moral flaw, as some Deleuzians claim. Rather, it is an error immanent to the very possibility of thought. The process of individuation covers over the conditions for the given, and makes it seem a priori. Due to the success of cognitive thought - the application of concepts to material - we mistakenly assume that cognition is the only form of thought we have.

How to avoid this? Well, in the 'encounter,' we are able to pierce the Image of Thought; Bryant goes into great depth to show how this is possible. This is followed by a chapter relating Deleuze's thought to pre-critical dogmatism. Bryant argues that Deleuze seeks a thought which avoids the problems associated with both philosophies of immediacy and philosophies of conceptual mediation. He does so by appealing to the possibility of a manifold without a transcendental apperceiver, and insisting on the necessity of *some* given within thought in order to set limits to thinking. By contrast, a thinking without object or given is necessarily identity thinking, or subjective idealism. Finally, the book closes with a chapter on the processes of individuation Deleuze's philosophy provides: the actual is merely one among many possibilities of the virtual structure of the world, one 'answer' to a given problem. This view requires neither an opposition between nor an identity of, subject and object.

Bryant's book is difficult, but worthwhile. I have barely scratched the surface here. He gives readers of Deleuze an important vocabulary, one which enables us to situate Deleuze in many 20th century philosophical debates, both continental (particularly with regard to Adorno's thought on the non-identical and the rights of the object) and anglophone (the Sellarsian debates about givenness, and the new Aristotelianisms). Most importantly, he's adequately nasty to 'Deleuzians' who need to be set straight, and has no time for deliberate obfuscation and self-righteousness. Really, you should buy this book. ... Read more

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Collections of articles
This book is a collection of articles on logical positivism. You should consider the authors and table of content if you finnd it interesting. Mainly for specialists on logical positivism. ... Read more

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Scheibe is one of the most important philosophers of science in Germany. Since little of his work has been translated into English, he is not yet well known internationally. This translation of some 40 of his papers is intended to remedy that lack. Scheibe has written extensively on all the problems that confront the philosophy of physics: rationalism vs. empiricism; reductionism; the foundations of quantum mechanics; space-time, and so forth. ... Read more

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A new direction in philosophy
Between 1920 and 1940 logical empiricism reset the direction of philosophy of science and much of the rest of Anglo-American philosophy. It began as a relatively organized movement centered on the Vienna Circle, and like-minded philosophers elsewhere, especially in Berlin. As Europe drifted into the Nazi era, several important figures, especially Carnap and Neurath, also found common ground in their liberal politics and radical social agenda. Together, the logical empiricists set out to reform traditional philosophy with a new set of doctrines more firmly grounded in logic and science.

Criticism and decline
Because of Nazi persecution, most of the European adherents of logical empiricism moved to the United States in the late 1930s. During the 1940s, many of their most cherished tenets became targets of criticism from outsiders as well as from within their own ranks. Philosophers of science in the late 1950s and 1960s rejected logical empiricism and, starting in the 1970s, presented such alternative programs such as scientific realism with evolutionary epistemology.

A resurgence of interest
During the early 1980s, philosophers and historians of philosophy began to study logical empiricism as an important movement. Unlike their predecessors in the 1960s-for whom the debate over logical empiricism now seems to have been largely motivated by professional politics-these philosopher no longer have to take positions for or against logical empiricism. The result has been a more balanced view of that movement, its achievements, its failures, and its influence.

Hard-to-find core writings now available
This collection makes available a selection of the most influential and representative writings of the logical empiricists, important contemporary criticisms of their doctrines, their responses, as well as the recent reappraisals. Introductions to each volume examine the articles in historical context and provide important background information that is vital to a full understanding of the issues discussed. They outline prevalent trends, identifying leading figures and summarize their positions and reasoning, as well as those of opposing thinkers. ... Read more

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Originally published in 1982. This volume explores some features of modern philosophy of science from the point of view of their utility for sociology’s self-understanding. Recently philosophers of science have broken with the empiricism once fundamental to their discipline, and have sought alternative methods of science. Founded on the belief that these developments are significant for sociologists, the book explores the failings of the old "received view" and some of the more recent alternatives. It proposes a schematic outline of the structure of inquiry, paying detailed attention to questions about the nature of theory, explanation and demonstration.

Product Description
A new direction in philosophy
Between 1920 and 1940 logical empiricism reset the direction of philosophy of science and much of the rest of Anglo-American philosophy. It began as a relatively organized movement centered on the Vienna Circle, and like-minded philosophers elsewhere, especially in Berlin. As Europe drifted into the Nazi era, several important figures, especially Carnap and Neurath, also found common ground in their liberal politics and radical social agenda. Together, the logical empiricists set out to reform traditional philosophy with a new set of doctrines more firmly grounded in logic and science.

Criticism and decline
Because of Nazi persecution, most of the European adherents of logical empiricism moved to the United States in the late 1930s. During the 1940s, many of their most cherished tenets became targets of criticism from outsiders as well as from within their own ranks. Philosophers of science in the late 1950s and 1960s rejected logical empiricism and, starting in the 1970s, presented such alternative programs such as scientific realism with evolutionary epistemology.

A resurgence of interest
During the early 1980s, philosophers and historians of philosophy began to study logical empiricism as an important movement. Unlike their predecessors in the 1960s-for whom the debate over logical empiricism now seems to have been largely motivated by professional politics-these philosopher no longer have to take positions for or against logical empiricism. The result has been a more balanced view of that movement, its achievements, its failures, and its influence.

Hard-to-find core writings now available
This collection makes available a selection of the most influential and representative writings of the logical empiricists, important contemporary criticisms of their doctrines, their responses, as well as the recent reappraisals. Introductions to each volume examine the articles in historical context and provide important background information that is vital to a full understanding of the issues discussed. They outline prevalent trends, identifying leading figures and summarize their positions and reasoning, as well as those of opposing thinkers. ... Read more

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A collection of the most important articles and essays by Bishop Ian Ramsay, a leading philosopher of religion, exploring his approach to philosophy and theology and the relationship between them. Divided into three parts - 'Contemporary Philosophy', 'The Meaning of God Talk', and 'The Logic of Faith' - this volume contains Ian Ramsey's thoughts on philosophy, metaphysics and ontology, the meaning and understanding of the gospels, and the justification of faith. An extensive appendix includes the author's answers to the contemporary subjects of freedom and immortality, Christian education and the intellectual crisis, and they are complemented by a selected bibliography. ... Read more

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This volume begins with Herbert of Cherbury and the Cambridge Platonists and with Newton and the early English Enlightenment.Locke is a key figure, as a result of his importance both in the development of British and Irish philosophy and because of his seminal influence in the Enlightenment as a whole. British Philosophy and the Age of the Enlightenment includes discussion of the Scott Enlightenment and its influence on the German Aufklaring, and consequently on Kant.The French Enlightenment, which in turn affected the late radical Enlightenment, especially Bentham, is also considered here. ... Read more

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Originally published in 1986. All students of social science must confront a number of important philosophical issues. This introduction to the philosophy of the social sciences provides coherent answers to questions about empiricism, explanation and rationality. It evaluates contemporary writings on the subject which can be as difficult as they are important to understand. Each chapter has an annotated bibliography to enable students to pursue the issues raised and to assess for themselves the arguments of the authors.

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It was in 1660s England, according to the received view, in the Royal Society of London, that science acquired the form of empirical enquiry we recognize as our own: an open, collaborative experimental practice, mediated by specially-designed instruments, supported by civil discourse, stressing accuracy and replicability. Guided by the philosophy of Francis Bacon, by Protestant ideas of this worldly benevolence, by gentlemanly codes of decorum and by a dominant interest in mechanics and the mechanical structure of the universe, the members of the Royal Society created a novel experimental practice that superseded former modes of empirical inquiry, from Aristotelian observations to alchemical experimentation.

This volume focuses on the development of empiricism as an interest in the body – as both the object of research and the subject of experience. Re-embodying empiricism shifts the focus of interest to the ‘life sciences’; medicine, physiology, natural history. In fact, many of the active members of the Royal Society were physicians, and a significant number of those, disciples of William Harvey and through him, inheritors of the empirical anatomy practices developed in Padua during the 16^th century. Indeed, the primary research interests of the early Royal Society were concentrated on the body, human and animal, and its functions much more than on mechanics. Similarly, the Académie des Sciences directly contradicted its self-imposed mandate to investigate Nature in mechanistic fashion, devoting a significant portion of its Mémoires to questions concerning life, reproduction and monsters, consulting empirical botanists, apothecaries and chemists, and keeping closer to experience than to the Cartesian standards of well-founded knowledge.

These highlighted empirical studies of the body, were central in a workshop in the beginning of 2009 organized by the unit for History and Philosophy of Science in Sydney. The papers that were presented by some of the leading figures in this area are presented in this volume.

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Have you been put off from reading great books because the original ‘Olde English’ makes the going rough? Here you’ll find classic philosophy texts updated and paraphrased into modern English. Learn the key ideas of the great empiricist philosophers like Thomas Hobbes, who framed the course of the modern political state; John Locke, who inspired Thomas Jefferson and the American Revolution and David Hume, Historian, Philosopher, Diplomat and the ultimate Scottish Skeptic. Relax and enjoy the modified writings of these important thinkers by Professor of Philosophy Dr. Les Sutter—without the long, dull introductions and explanations. A real treat! ... Read more