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Contending that only a normative theory of rationality can be adequate to the complexities of the subject, this book explains and defends the view that rationality consists of the intelligent pursuit of appropriate objectives. Rescher considers the mechanics, rationale, and rewards of reason, and argues that social scientists who want to present a theory of rationality while avoiding the vexing complexities of normative deliberations must amend their perspective of the rational enterprise. ... Read more

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This would have made old Lukacs happy
Gyorgy Markus was a member of the so-called Budapest Circle in socialist Hungary of the 60s. This grouping of brilliant students was gathered around the Marxist philosopher Gyorgy Lukacs. While Markus' other comrades in theBudapest Circle such as Agnes Heller and Ferenc Feher have drifted far awayfrom Marxism and have become vituperative critics of socialism, this bookshows that only Markus has continued Lukacs' great tradition of laboringtowards the renewal of Marxism and socialism. Markus devotes the first partof the book to a briliant and comprehensive critique of the so-called"paradigm of language" as it has been represented byWittgenstein, Levi-Strauss, Gadamer and Habermas. He points out here thatall these philosophies seem to fall back into some kind of utter fatalismunder the inexorable weight of linguistic reality. Marx on the other handwith his "paradigm of production" is able to lend a more balancedviewpoint on the tension between the "human condition" and the"human striving" for a better society (as Markus demonstrates inthe second part of his book). Markus seems to continue, in a positiveMarxist direction, the earlier model introduced by Heller regarding the"concept of needs" in Marx. The third and last part of the bookis rather difficult going because too condensed, but it is apparently anexposition of Markus' own understanding, practice and reconstruction ofhistorical materialism. ... Read more

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Modern philosophy has been vexed by the question "Why should I be moral?" and by doubts about the rational authority of moral virtue. In Reasons without Rationalism, Kieran Setiya shows that these doubts rest on a mistake. The "should" of practical reason cannot be understood apart from the virtues of character, including such moral virtues as justice and benevolence, and the considerations to which the virtues make one sensitive thereby count as reasons to act. Proposing a new framework for debates about practical reason, Setiya argues that the only alternative to this "virtue theory" is a form of ethical rationalism in which reasons derive from the nature of intentional action. Despite its recent popularity, however, ethical rationalism is false. It wrongly assumes that we act "under the guise of the good," or it relies on dubious views about intention and motivation. It follows from the failure of rationalism that the virtue theory is true: we cannot be fully good without the perfection of practical reason, or have that perfection without being good. Addressing such topics as the psychology of virtue and the explanation of action, Reasons without Rationalism is essential reading for philosophers interested in ethics, rationality, or the philosophy of mind. ... Read more

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G W F Hegel's so-called speculative logic was revolutionary since it attacked the basic laws of Aristotelian logic - the laws of contradiction and excluded middle - which stood as the foundation for the field for well over a millennium. He replaced these laws with the principle of mediation, which he used to redefine all the key terms of the discipline. In the 1830s this highly controversial theory was attacked by a number of philosophers in Germany and Prussia. These debates spilled over into Denmark in the late 1830s and early 1840s and represent one of the signal episodes in the Danish Hegel reception. This volume includes the main texts in this controversy. The debate proper was initiated by the article "Rationalism, Supernaturalism" by the theologian Jakob Peter Mynster, who attacked Hegel's criticism of the law of excluded middle. The poet Johan Ludvig Heiberg, and the then young theologian Hans Lassen Martensen, then came to Hegel's defense with articles which responded to Mynster's charges. Other interlocutors in the discussion were the philosopher Frederik Christian Sibbern and the religious writer Soren Kierkegaard.There can be no doubt that Kierkegaard's frequent critical discussions of mediation were significantly influenced by these debates. ... Read more

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In his Second Paralogism of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant described what he called the "Achilles of all dialectical inferences in the pure doctrine of the soul". This argument, which he took to be powerful yet fatally flawed, purports to establish the simplicity of the human mind, or soul, on the basis of the unity of consciousness. It is the aim of this volume to treat the major figures who have advanced the Achilles argument, or who have held views bearing on it.

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This concise and accessible introduction to Strauss's thought provides, for wider audience, a bridge to his more complex theoretical work.Editor Pangle has gathered five of Strauss's previously unpublished lectures and five hard-to-find published writings and has arranged them so as to demonstrate the systematic progression of the major themes that underlay Strauss's mature work.

"[These essays] display the incomparable insight and remarkable range of knowledge that set Strauss's works apart from any other twentieth-century philosopher's."--Charles R. Kesler, National Review ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

see the light
this book is increadible...Strauss is a genius. This book is amazing becuase it discloses a small amount of evidence of esoteric meanings hidden in ancient philosophy. Of course Strauss is not the first author to mention this (another good refrence is Morals and Dogma, Albert Pike) but Strauss also gives away a few clues on how to decypher the ancient texts. This book is a must read and own for any one who wants to see beyond the conventional, exoteric side of philosophy. I highly recomend it to any freemason or initiate of a mystery school. Or at least any one intrested in learning more about esoteric ideas transmitted through ancient philosophy, drama, and poetry. Simply Amazing!

Introducing Leo Strauss
It is with no small reluctance that I write a review of a book "by" Leo Strauss.It seems that almost everyone today already has an opinion about Strauss, and I usually prefer to stay out of these perfervid, and perfervidly comical, professorial debates.However, precisely in such a climate, readers new to Strauss ought to have a guide whose sole intention is to help them make up their own minds about Strauss' worth without prejudging the entire issue.

RCPR is a compilation of essays written and lectures given by Strauss.Strauss did not select the current pieces, he did not arrange them, he did not edit them.As the editor says, "this book is not a book intended by Strauss."As such, it cannot be said to reveal Strauss' thought the way he would have revealed it.However, with those caveats in mind, I believe that no other book is a better introduction to Strauss' thought.RCPR touches upon all of Strauss' major concerns, including the 3 quarrels that dominate his thinking: the quarrel b/t ancients and moderns, between poetry and philosophy, and b/t revelation and philosophy.It also includes a discussion of esotericism, which has made him notorious to some and demonic (in the pagan sense) to others.

RCPR is divided into three parts; the central part culminates in discussions of Thucydides and Socrates.In these two chapters, one can find certain formulations that, I believe, are more direct and to the point than formulations found anywhere else in the Straussian corpus.For example, while discussing Socrates, Strauss says, "The discovery of noetic heterogeneity permits one to let things be what they are" (p.142).Strauss discusses noetic heterogeneity in many places, but I believe nowhere else does he make quite so clear his Husserlian conception of the Socratic question, the question of the eidos of a thing.That such accessible formulations occur, and that these lectures are not otherwise avaliable in published form, testifies to the value of this book.

To sum up: this is the best introduction to Strauss' thought available, but one must keep in mind that as an introduction, it does not present the whole of Strauss' thought.In particular, it does not readily reveal the depths of Strauss' thought.Those depths are revealed only when this book is read in light of Strauss' other books.Whether those depths lead to an abyss is a question that the reader will have to eventually confront. ... Read more

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This Elibron Classics edition is a facsimile reprint of a 1902 edition by H. Fluegel & Co., Baltimore. ... Read more

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Christopher Norris argues for and constructs a new approach to philosophy of mind that combines naturalistic and rationalist perspectives usually thought to be at odds. "Re-Thinking the Cogito" seeks to combine a strongly naturalistic with a distinctively rationalist perspective on some nowadays much-discussed issues in philosophy of mind. Against the common view that they involve downright incompatible conceptions of mind, knowledge and ethics it seeks to unite a naturalism that draws on recent advances in neurophysiology and cognitive science with an outlook that gives full weight to those normative values at the heart of rationalist thought. True to the book's constructive spirit, Norris offers various detailed proposals for bringing the two approaches into a mutually enhancing - though also mutually provocative - relationship. He finds that claim strikingly prefigured in Spinoza's working-out of a non-reductive yet metaphysically uncompromising mind/body monism. Moreover he suggests how a thoroughly naturalised approach might yet become a locus of productive engagement with the work of an ultra-rationalist thinker such as Alain Badiou.Thus Norris puts the case that physically embodied human thought has cognitive, intellectual and creative powers that cannot and need not be accounted for in terms of conscious (let alone self-conscious) reflection. "Continuum Studies in Philosophy" presents cutting-edge scholarship in all the major areas of research and study. The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from a range of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. ... Read more

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Original papers by outstanding scholars (including Nobel laureate John C. Harsanyi) critically examine and extend the most important aspects of Richard Brandts seminal work on the roles of rationality, rules, and utility in developing a coherent account of normative ethics. Brandt provides a set of valuable detailed responses to these new papers. For more than forty years, Richard Brandts work has been at the cutting edge of research into the roles played by rationality, rules, and utility in developing a coherent account of normative ethics. In this volume of original essays, outstanding scholars (including Nobel laureate John C. Harsanyi) critically examine and extend the most important aspects of his work. The value of these new contributions is enhanced by Brandts detailed responses. Scholars of ethics, and of human behavior more generally, will find this book consistently stimulating and rewarding. ... Read more

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According to the natural law account of practical rationality, the basic reasons for actions are basic goods that are grounded in the nature of human beings. Practical rationality aims to identify and characterize reasons for action and to explain how choice between actions worth performing can be appropriately governed by rational standards. Natural Law and Practical Rationality is a defense of a contemporary natural law theory of practical rationality, demonstrating its inherent plausibility and engaging systematically with rival egoist, consequentialist, Kantian and virtue accounts. ... Read more

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This book examines the modern Arab rediscovery of the Mu'tazila through a critical assessment of the concept of "Neo-Mu'tazilism" and by concentrating on the various intentions and contexts of the use of Mu'tazilite ideas. The main part of the book analyzes five ways of understanding Mu'tazilite ideas - liberal, historic-materialist, political-Islamic, literary-exegetical and through comparison with the philosophie des valeurs - as well as one way of dealing with the school historically: the treatment of the mina. The book discusses a wide range of authors of whom many, such as A'mad Am'n, Husain Mur'wa, asan-anaf, Mu'ammad-Am-ra, Na'r Ab-Zaid und Mu'ammad bid al-bir, have had an important impact on modern Arab-Islamic thought. By also presenting authors such as Zuhd'rall'h, Chikh Bouamrane, Rasd al-ayy'n, Am'n Nyif'iyb, Sam Duaim, dil al-Awwund Fahmadn, additional light is shed on a number of lesser known figures. ... Read more

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Our society has come to think that truth lies in the area of the measurable, of empirical evidence and objective analysis, that particular mode of rationality called "technical reason", and that the knowledge of this mode is what is needed to guide humankind in all areas of practice. In this work, Joseph Dunne develops a philosophical context for exposing the limits of technical reason and for analysing the practical knowledge that informs successful activity in different domains. Dunne begins by examining the retrieval of Aristotle's distinction between phronesis/praxis and techne/poiesis in the work of John Henry Newman, R.G. Collingwood and Hannah Arendt. He then discusses the universal significance claimed for the Aristotelian distinction in the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, and examines how the distinction is both invoked and eventually challenged in the critical theory of Jurgen Habermas. "Back to the Rough Ground" then examines the two central categories in Aristotle's own texts, emphasising the theoretical inclination of techne and the inescapably personal and experimential nature of phronesis.The book concludes by reviewing the main themes of the work - the nature of experience, practice, language and finitude, the limits of reason, and the need for a reconstruction of the whole modern philosophy of consciousness. Dunne suggests implications for different areas of study, and situates the volume within the context of current philosophical debates, especially with regard to universalism and post-modernism. ... Read more

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True Freedom: Spinoza's Practical Philosophy focuses on the practicality of Spinoza's thought. This is revealed through the subsidiary themes of ethics as an experimentalism, Spinoza's conception of freedom, and the social themes of politics, religion, and the environment. While the book focuses primarily on Spinoza's major work, the Ethics. It also draws on the Theological-Political Treatise, the Political Treatise, and Spinoza's correspondence. ... Read more

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This ebook is complete with linked Table of Content making navigation quicker and easier.

John Mackinnon Robertsonwas a prolific journalist, advocate of rationalism and secularism, and Liberal Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom for Tyneside from 1906 to 1918.

In 1878 he became a follower of secularist leader Charles Bradlaugh and became active in the secularist cause in Edinburgh, before moving to London to become assistant editor of Bradlaugh's paper National Reformer, subsequently taking over as editor on Bradlaugh's death in 1891[1]. The National Reformer finally closed in 1893. Robertson was also an appointed lecturer for the freethinkingSouth Place Ethical Society[2]from 1899 until the 1920s.

Robertson's political radicalism developed in the 1880s and 1890s, and he first stood for Parliament in 1895, failing to win Bradlaugh's old seat in Northampton as an independent radical liberal. Robertson was a staunch free trader and his Trade and Tariffs (1908) "became a bible for free-traders pursuing the case for cheap food and the expansion of trade".
---From Wikipedia

The names ‘rationalist’ and ‘rationalism’ have been used in so many senses within the past three hundred years that they cannot be said to stand quite definitely for any type or school of philosophic thought. For Bacon, a ‘rationalist’ or rationalis was a physician with a priori views of disease and bodily function; and the Aristotelian humanists of the Helmstadt school were named rationalistas about the same period by their opponents. A little later some Continental scholars applied the name to the Socinians and deists; and later still it designated, in Britain, types of Christian thinkers who sought to give a relatively reasoned form to articles of the current creed which had generally been propounded as mysteries to be taken on faith. The claim to apply ‘reason’ in such matters was by many orthodox persons regarded as in itself impious, while others derided the adoption of the title of ‘rationalist’ or ‘reasonist’ by professing Christians as an unwarranted pretence of superior reasonableness. Used in ethics, the label ‘rationalism’ served in the earlier part of the eighteenth century to stigmatise, as lacking in evangelical faith, those Christians who sought to make their moral philosophy quadrate with that of ‘natural religion.’ Later in the century, though in England we find the status of ‘rational’ claimed for orthodox belief in miracles and prophecies as the only valid evidence for Christianity, rationalism became the recognised name for the critical methods of the liberal German theologians who sought to reduce the supernatural episodes of the Scriptures to the status of natural events misunderstood; and several professed histories of modern ‘rationalism’ have accordingly dealt mainly or wholly with the developments of Biblical criticism in Germany. ... Read more