Final Causality in Nature and Human Affaires
Author: Richard F. Hassing
Publisher:
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 282
ISBN-13: 9780183208912
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Lanterna Rally
eBook PDF Download Digital Library
Final Causality in Nature and Human Affairs
Author: Richard F. Hassing
Publisher: CUA Press
Published: 2018-03-02
Total Pages: 289
ISBN-13: 081323056X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Teleology - the inquiry into the goals or goods at which nature, history, God, and human beings aim - is among the most fundamental yet controversial themes in the history of philosophy. Are there ends in nonhuman nature? Does human history have a goal? Do humanly unintended events of great significance express some sort of purpose? Do human beings have ends prior to choice? The essays in this volume address the abiding questions of final causality. The chapters are arranged in historical order from Aristotle through Hegel to contemporary anthropic-principle cosmology.
Final Causality in Nature and Human Affairs
Author: Richard F. Hassing
Publisher:
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 289
ISBN-13: 9780813230573
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Intro -- Contents -- 1. Richard F. Hassing, Introduction -- 2. William A. Wallace, Is Finality Included in Aristotle's Definition of Nature? -- 3. Allan Gotthelf, Understanding Aristotle's Teleology -- 4. Francis Slade, Ends and Purposes -- 5. Ernest L. Fortin, On the Presumed Medieval Origin of Individual Rights -- 6. Richard L. Velkley, Moral Finality and the Unity of Homo sapiens: On Teleology in Kant -- 7. David A. White, Unity and Form in Kant's Notion of Purpose -- 8. John W. Burbidge, The Cunning of Reason -- 9. John Leslie, The Anthropic Principle Today -- 10. George Gale, Anthropic-Principle Cosmology: Physics or Metaphysics? -- 11. Richard F. Hassing, Modern Natural Science and the Intelligibility of Human Experience -- Contributors -- Bibliography -- Index
Contemporary Perspectives on Natural Law
Author: Ana Marta González
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-05-13
Total Pages: 335
ISBN-13: 1317160606
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Resorting to natural law is one way of conveying the philosophical conviction that moral norms are not merely conventional rules. Accordingly, the notion of natural law has a clear metaphysical dimension, since it involves the recognition that human beings do not conceive themselves as sheer products of society and history. And yet, if natural law is to be considered the fundamental law of practical reason, it must show also some intrinsic relationship to history and positive law. The essays in this book examine this tension between the metaphysical and the practical and how the philosophical elaboration of natural law presents this notion as a "limiting-concept", between metaphysics and ethics, between the mutable and the immutable; between is and ought, and, in connection with the latter, even the tension between politics and eschatology as a double horizon of ethics. This book, contributed to by scholars from Europe and America, is a major contribution to the renewed interest in natural law. It provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of natural law, both from a historical and a systematic point of view. It ranges from the mediaeval synthesis of Aquinas through the early modern elaborations of natural law, up to current discussions on the very possibility and practical relevance of natural law theory for the contemporary mind.
Our Posthuman Future
Author: Francis Fukuyama
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2003-05-01
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780374706180
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In 1989, Francis Fukuyama made his now-famous pronouncement that because "the major alternatives to liberal democracy had exhausted themselves," history as we knew it had reached its end. Ten years later, he revised his argument: we hadn't reached the end of history, he wrote, because we hadn't yet reached the end of science. Arguing that our greatest advances still to come will be in the life sciences, Fukuyama now asks how the ability to modify human behavior will affect liberal democracy. To re-orient contemporary debate, Fukuyama underlines man's changing understanding of human nature through history: from Plato and Aristotle's belief that man had "natural ends," to the ideals of utopians and dictators of the modern age who sought to remake mankind for ideological ends. Fukuyama persuasively argues that the ultimate prize of the biotechnology revolution-intervention in the "germ-line," the ability to manipulate the DNA of all of one person's descendents-will have profound, and potentially terrible, consequences for our political order, even if undertaken by ordinary parents seeking to "improve" their children. In Our Posthuman Future, our greatest social philosopher begins to describe the potential effects of exploration on the foundation of liberal democracy: the belief that human beings are equal by nature.
Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences
Author: Byron Kaldis
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2013-03-07
Total Pages: 1195
ISBN-13: 1452276048
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"This encyclopedia, magnificently edited by Byron Kaldis, will become a valuable source both of reference and inspiration for all those who are interested in the interrelation between philosophy and the many facets of the social sciences. A must read for every student of the humanities." Wulf Gaertner, University of Osnabrueck, Germany "Like all good works of reference this Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences is not to be treated passively: it provides clear and sometimes controversial material for constructive confrontation. It is a rich resource for critical engagement. The Encyclopedia conceived and edited by Byron Kaldis is a work of impressive scope and I am delighted to have it on my bookshelf.” David Bloor, Edinburgh University "This splendid and possibly unique work steers a skilful course between narrower conceptions of philosophy and the social sciences. It will be an invaluable resource for students and researchers in either or both fields, and to anyone working on the interrelations between them." William Outhwaite, Newcastle University The Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences is the first of its kind in bringing the subjects of philosophy and the social sciences together. It is not only about the philosophy of the social sciences but, going beyond that, it is also about the relationship between philosophy and the social sciences. The subject of the Encyclopedia is purposefully multi- and inter-disciplinary. Knowledge boundaries are both delineated and crossed over. The goal is to convey a clear sense of how philosophy looks at the social sciences and to mark out a detailed picture of how the two are interrelated: interwoven at certain times but also differentiated and contrasted at others. The Entries cover topics of central significance but also those that are both controversial and on the cutting-edge, underlining the unique mark of this Encyclopedia: the interrelationship between philosophy and the social sciences, especially as it is found in fresh ideas and unprecedented hybrid disciplinary areas. The Encyclopedia serves a further dual purpose: it contributes to the renewal of the philosophy of the social sciences and helps to promote novel modes of thinking about some of its classic problems.
Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand of God
Author: Brendan Long
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2022-12-01
Total Pages: 275
ISBN-13: 1000536386
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book contributes to the ‘new view’ reading of Adam Smith, providing a historically and contextually rich interpretation of Smith’s thought. Smith built a moral philosophy on the foundations of a natural theology of human sociality. Examination of his life, relationship with David Hume and use of divine names shows that he retained a progressive form of Christian theism. The book interrogates the metaphor of the ‘invisible hand’ and highlights the importance of the religious dimension of Adam Smith’s thought for his moral philosophy, his jurisprudence and his economics. It reflects on the contemporary relevance of a theological reading of Smith and lays the ground for further inquiry between economic and religious perspectives.
Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter
Author: Terrence W. Deacon
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 625
ISBN-13: 0393049914
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Examines the emergent processes that bridge the gap between organisms that think and have consciousness and those that do not and discusses the origins of life, information, and free will.
Aquinas
Author: John Peterson
Publisher: University Press of America
Published: 2008-09-10
Total Pages: 254
ISBN-13: 9780761841807
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Aquinas provides an in-depth analysis of basic philosophical concepts in the thought of Aquinas. These concepts include: being, essence, existence, form, matter, truth, goodness, freedom and necessity, knowledge, willing and choosing, and right action. These ideas are approached from an analytical point of view but the analysis is not exceedingly technical, which allows beginners to follow the discussion. Many other works consider only one aspect of Aquinas's thought such as his treatment of persons, his arguments for God's existence, or his theory of truth but Peterson's Aquinas combines readability with both depth and close analysis to give a comprehensive overview of Aquinas's work without sacrificing either accuracy or depth.
Assumptions about Human Nature
Author: Lawrence S. Wrightsman
Publisher: SAGE
Published: 1992
Total Pages: 379
ISBN-13: 0803927754
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"This book, which is in its second edition, provides a provocative mirror from which to discern more clearly one's own assumptions about human nature. . . . I found myself reflecting on the subject matter and its impact on my own life, including relationships, teaching, research, and therapy. . . . The author has done a superb job of raising our consciousness about human nature in this book, an I strongly recommend it to academic and applied psychologists. If you need an invitation to examine your views about human nature, this book is it." --C. R. Snyder, University of Kansas, Lawrence In general, are people trustworthy or unreliable, altruistic or selfish? Are they simple and easy to understand or complex and beyond comprehension? Our assumptions about human nature color everything from the way we bargain with a used-car dealer to our expectations about further conflict in the Middle East. Because our assumptions about human nature underlie our reactions to specific events, Wrightsman designed this second edition to enhance our understanding of human nature--the relationship of attitudes to behavior, the unidimensionality of attitudes, and the influence of social movements on beliefs. Psychologists, social workers, researchers, and students will find Assumptions About Human Nature an illuminating exploration into the philosophies of human nature.
