Author: Phillip Dibble
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 146341563X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Get Book Here
Book Description
1930S America was in the depths of the great worldwide depression. A rich young man, educated in the radical mix of the University of Chicago, joins with a group of young communists who want to abet the struggle for union rights in the emerging labor union movement. They are in the thick of the physcial and economic struggle when Rick shoots several strikebreakers who are beating some unarmed strikers. His group aids him in his escape to South America and then to Berlin. There he becomes involved in the political intrigues that led to World War II. He accompanies a strange little man to Zurich where he meets "The Fat Man" a worldly wise amoral adventurer who has developed a scheme for running guns for Emperor Haile Selaisse of Ethiopia in his struggle againts Mussolini's fascist dreams of a new Rome. On arrival Rick sees quickly the futility of the scheme which rapidly unravels. The group escape from Ethiopia, scatters, and he goes to Spain. There he joins the International Brigades who are fighting General Franco's fascists. Soviet intrigues, espionage, and betrayals cause him to flee to Paris. There he meets a mysterious young woman and falls in love. His happiness is interrupted by the approaching Nazi Wehrmacht.
Author: Roy MacLaren
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 077358644X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Get Book Here
Book Description
During the parliamentary years, from his first election in 1979 to his appointment to London in 1996, MacLaren draws on his diary to offer impressions - at times devastating, at others sympathetic - of those he encountered in his several ministerial capacities and global travels. Earlier, life in Saigon and Hanoi following the French Indo-China war, the oppressions of the Stalinist regime in Czechoslovakia, the erection of the Berlin Wall, multilateral diplomacy at the United Nations in Geneva and New York during the Cold War are recounted with both insight and humility. Of his business career, MacLaren offers, for example, an insider's perspective on the collapse of Massey-Ferguson and the successes of his business magazine company. A political memoir set in an autobiography, The Fundamental Things Apply ranges widely over Canadian economic and international affairs, including NAFTA and deficit elimination, during the latter decades of the twentieth century, offering a timely and personal account of how the public policies - both domestic and international - pursued then were formative in creating the country we live in today.
Author: Louis deRosset
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198812892
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Get Book Here
Book Description
The scientific successes of the last 400 years strongly suggest a view in which things are organized into layers, with phenomena in higher layers dependent on and determined by what occurs below. Philosophers have recently explored the idea that we can make sense of this through a relation called grounding. This book develops the rudiments of a theory of grounding and applies that theory to various questions on the nature of facts and truth. The initial theorizing examines in detail what grounding is and how it relates to relevant forms of explanation; it addresses arguments against the notion of grounding and draws points of contrast between a grounding-centered approach to relative fundamentality and other approaches in philosophy. deRosset then turns to a demonstration of how this theorizing bears fruit in investigating questions concerning (1) how to distinguish between truths that say how objective reality is in itself, quite independently of us, and truths that do not; (2) the nature of truth; and (3) the relation between fundamental physical facts and the rich panoply of other facts that depend on and are determined by them, including facts concerning our own doings. The aim is to advance our understanding of one of the deepest and thorniest questions which the stunning scientific achievements of the last 400 years pose: how higher-level phenomena, including ourselves, fit into an ultimately physical world.
Author: Karen Bennett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192519727
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Get Book Here
Book Description
A certain kind of talk is ubiquitous among both philosophers and so-called "ordinary people": talk of one phenomenon generating or giving rise to another, or talk of one phenomenon being based in or constructed from another. For example, your computer screen is built of atoms in a complex configuration, and the picture on the screen is based in the local illumination of various individual pixels. Karen Bennett calls the family of relations invoked by such talk 'building relations'. Grounding is one currently popular such relation; so too are composition, property realization, and-controversially-causation. In chapters 2 and 3 Bennett argues that despite their differences, building relations form an interestingly unified family, and characterizes what all building relations have in common. In chapter 4 she argues that it's a mistake to think there is a strict divide between causal and noncausal determination. Chapters 5 and 6 turn to the connections between building and fundamentality. Bennett argues at length that both absolute and relative fundamentality are best understood in terms of building, and that to say that one thing is more fundamental than another is to say no more than that certain patterns of building obtain. In chapter 7 Bennett argues that facts about what builds what must be themselves built: if a builds b, there is something in virtue of which that is the case. She also argues that the answer is a itself. Finally, in chapter 8 she defends an assumption that runs throughout the rest of the book, namely that there indeed are nonfundamental, built entities. Doing so involves substantive discussion about the scope of Ockham's Razor. Bennett argues that some nonfundamentalia are among the proper subject-matter of metaphysics, and thus that metaphysics is not best understood as the study of the fundamental nature of reality.
Author: James Warren
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317493370
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Get Book Here
Book Description
The earliest phase of philosophy in Europe saw the beginnings of cosmology and rational theology, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethical and political theory. It saw the development of a wide range of radical and challenging ideas: from Thales' claim that magnets have souls and Parmenides' account that there is only one unchanging existent to the development of an atomist theory of the physical world. This general account of the Presocratics introduces the major Greek philosophical thinkers from the sixth to the middle of the fifth century BC. It explores how we might go about reconstructing their views and understanding the motivation and context for their work as well as highlighting the ongoing philosophical interest of their often surprising claims. Separate chapters are devoted to each of the major Presocratic thinkers, including Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Leucippus and Democritus, and an introductory chapter sets the scene by describing their intellectual world and the tradition through which their philosophy has been transmitted and interpreted. With a useful chronology and guide to further reading, the book is an ideal introduction for the student and general reader.
Author: Duncan Pritchard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135037450
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 466
Get Book Here
Book Description
What is this thing called Philosophy? is the definitive textbook for all who want a thorough introduction to the field. It introduces philosophy using a question-led approach that reflects the discursive nature of the discipline. Edited by Duncan Pritchard, each section is written by a high-profile contributor focusing on a key area of philosophy, and contains three or four question-based chapters offering an accessible point of engagement. The core areas of philosophy covered are: Ethics Political Philosophy Aesthetics Epistemology Philosophy of Mind Metaphysics Philosophy of Science Philosophy of Religion The Meaning of Life. The accompanying Routledge companion website features valuable online resources for both instructors and students including links to audio and video material, multiple-choice questions, interactive flashcards, essay questions and annotated further reading. This is the essential textbook for students approaching the study of philosophy for the first time.
Author: Paul Noordhof
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192602853
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 591
Get Book Here
Book Description
This is the first book length defence of a counterfactual theory of causation. The analysis defended is new. It expresses the idea that, independent of its competitors, a cause raises the chance of an effect over its mean background chance by a complete causal chain. The analysis depends upon a novel development of David Lewis's Theory of Counterfactuals. One consequence of the analysis is that causation is not transitive. Causation is also nonsymmetric. The counterfactual basis of causal nonsymmetry is the result of a number of different, and sometimes interacting, nonsymmetries. The analysis allows for the development of a novel theory of events whose nature is independent of their role in causation and the identification of one other important causal relationship: property causation. Although compatible with Hume's denial of necessary connections between distinct existences, a key feature of the theory is that it benefits from being independent of the Humean framework. There are two ways in which something may be metaphysically fundamental: vertically and horizontally. Many metaphysicians emphasise vertical fundamentality and focus on truth making. The book rejects this emphasis and the truth making approach in particular. Horizontally fundamental metaphysical entities are those that are necessary components in different possible universes. Causation has a claim to be horizontally fundamental: the cement of any universe. Laws are patterns of causation realised in different metaphysical frameworks such as those articulated by Lewis, Armstrong and the powers ontologists. The book recognises varieties of causation both in, for example, counting cases of double prevention and causation by genuine processes as types of causation, and allowing that the analysis identifies causes across these different metaphysical frameworks.
Author: Steven B. Cowan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350016071
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 411
Get Book Here
Book Description
Problems in Epistemology and Metaphysics takes a pro and con approach to two central philosophical topics. Each chapter begins with a question: Can We Have Knowledge? How are Beliefs Justified? What is the mind? Contemporary philosophers with opposing viewpoints are then paired together to argue their position and raise problems with conflicting standpoints. Alongside an up-to-date introduction to a core philosophical stance, each contributor provides a critical response to their opponent and clear explanation of their view. Discussion questions are included at the end of each chapter to guide further discussion. With chapters covering core questions surrounding religious beliefs, scientific knowledge, truth, being and reality, this is a comprehensive introduction to debates lying at the heart of what we know, how we know it and the nature of the world we live in.
Author: Michael Della Rocca
Publisher:
ISBN: 0197510949
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Get Book Here
Book Description
The Parmenidean Ascent is a full-throated and wide-ranging defense of an extreme form of monism or the denial of all distinctions, a form of monism rarely seen since the time of the pre-Socratic philosopher, Parmenides. At once historically sensitive and deeply engaged with trends in recent and contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of action, epistemology, and philosophy of language, The Parmenidean Ascent aims, on rationalist grounds and in a skeptical spirit, to challenge the content of-and to overturn the methods of much of contemporary philosophy.
Author: Jan Westerhoff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192587188
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Get Book Here
Book Description
Does the real world, defined as a world of objects that exist independent of human interests, concerns, and cognitive activities, really exist? Jan Westerhoff argues that we have good reason to believe it does not. His discussion considers four main facets of the idea of the real world, ranging from the existence of a separate external and internal world (comprising various mental states congregated around a self), to the existence of an ontological foundation that grounds the existence of all the entities in the world, and the existence of an ultimately true theory that provides a final account of all there is. As Westerhoff discusses the reasons for rejecting the postulation of an external world behind our representations, he asserts that the internal world is not as epistemically transparent as is usually assumed, and that there are good reasons for adopting an anti-foundational account of ontological dependence. Drawing on conclusions from the ancient Indian philosophical system of Madhyamaka Buddhism, Westerhoff defends his stance in a purely Western philosophical framework, and affirms that ontology, and philosophy more generally, need not be conceived as providing an ultimately true theory of the world.
