Philosophy

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  Being in the World: Dialogue and Cosmopolis

  In Being in the World: Dialogue and Cosmopolis, noted political theorist Fred Dallmayr explores the world’s transition from a traditional Westphalian system of states to today’s interlocking cosmopolis. Drawing upon biblical literature, as well as ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle and current scholars such as Heidegger, Gadamer, and Raimon Panikkar, this manuscript delves into the importance of what Dallmayr calls “ethical-political engagement.” Dallmayr asserts that traditional concepts of individual and national identity, as well as perceived relationships between the self and others, are undergoing profound change. Every town has become a cosmopolis—an international city—affecting the way that nations ...Read More

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  Tennis and Philosophy: What the Racket is All About

  Tennis smashed onto the worldwide athletic scene soon after its modern rules and equipment were introduced in nineteenth-century England. Exciting, competitive, and uniquely accessible to people of all ages and talent levels, tennis continues to enjoy popularity, both as a recreational activity and a spectator sport.

  Life imitates sport in Tennis and Philosophy. Editor David Baggett approaches tennis not only as a game but also as a surprisingly rich resource for philosophical analysis. He assembles a team of champion scholars, including David Foster Wallace, Robert R. Clewis, David Detmer, Mark Huston, Tommy Valentini, Neil Delaney, and Kevin Kinghorn, to consider ...Read More

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  Royce's Voyage Down Under: A Journey of the Mind

  Josiah Royce’s voyage to the South Seas in 1888, undertaken on his physician’s advice, restored the philosopher to full physical and mental vigor. What is not so well known is that after a few months of sailing Royce began to “bag new game,” as he put it, in his philosophical pursuits. Frank M. Oppenheim examines Royce’s writings from this year of travel, including his correspondence and the notes he made on his reading, and finds there the seeds of much of his later thought.

  While Professor Oppenheim is careful not to overstate the importance of this year of travel in ...Read More

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  The Politics of Motion: The World of Thomas Hobbes

  Two principal issues interact and overlap in this penetrating analysis: the relationship between Hobbes’ natural philosophy and his civil philosophy, and the relationship between Hobbes’ thought and the Aristotelian world view that constituted the philosophical orthodoxy he rejected.

  On the first point Thomas A. Spragens Jr. argues that Hobbes’ political ideas were in fact significantly influenced by his cosmological perceptions, although they were not, and could not have been, completely derived from that source. On the second, the author demonstrates that Hobbes undertook a highly systematic transformation of Aristotelian cosmology: he borrowed the form of the Aristotelian cosmology, but radically ...Read More

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  Civilization and Progress

  Historical and systematic in its treatment, this work reviews the idea of progress in Western thought as it relates to civilization, in a more comprehensive survey than is to be found in previous writings on the subject. In the author’s view, the history of civilization reveals an increasing range of human capacity, both for good and for evil, depending upon men’s choice between contending values.

  From this standpoint, the work proceeds to the exploration of such fields of social activity as the evolution of the family, the emancipation of women, economic conditions and technology, intellectual and aesthetic values, moral and ...Read More

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  Being, Man, and Death: A Key to Heidegger

  Death, a perennial problem for philosophers and theologians, is especially crucial in the thought of Martin Heidegger. This penetrating commentary presents the concept of death as a unifying motif that illuminates many of the difficulties and obscurities of Heidegger’s philosophy. Heidegger comes to see death as revealing the ultimate meaning not only of human existence, but of being itself. He thus confers upon the concept a force and sharpness, an ontological depth which is found in perhaps no other philosopher.

  This study corroborates the much-debated “turning” in Heidegger’s philosophy. Demslce finds death to be the key not only to Heidegger’s ...Read More