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This series presents concise, clear, and rigorous analyses of the core problems that preoccupy philosophers across all approaches to the discipline. Each book encapsulates the essential arguments and debates, providing a guide to the subject while also introducing original perspectives.

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18 results in Central Problems of Philosophy

Knowledge
  • Michael Welbourne
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 June 2014
    Print publication:
    12 November 2001
  • What is it about knowledge that makes us value it more highly than mere true belief? This question lies at the heart of epistemology and has challenged philosophers ever since it was first posed by Plato. Michael Welbourne's examination of the historical and contemporary answers to this question provides both an excellent introduction to the development of epistemology but also a new theory of the nature of knowledge. The early chapters introduce the main themes and questions that have provided the context for modern discussions. The Platonic beginnings, Cartesian individualism and the tripartite analyses of knowledge are examined in turn. In the second half of the book, the focus shifts from conceptual analysis to an examination of the social practices surrounding knowledge, placing special emphasis on the notion of testimony. The author argues originally and persuasively that our idea of knowledge has its roots in communicative practices and that thinking about how testimony works as a source of beliefs actually gives us a handle on the very idea of knowledge itself. The book will be essential reading for anyone interested in epistemology, the philosophy of language, or the intersection between the two areas.

Meaning
  • David E. Cooper
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    13 February 2003
  • Meaning is one of our most central and most ubiquitous concepts. Anything at all may, in suitable contexts, have meaning ascribed to it. In this wide-ranging book, David Cooper departs from the usual focus on linguistic meaning to discuss how works of art, ceremony, social action, bodily gesture, and the purpose of life can all be meaningful. He argues that the notion of meaning is best approached by considering what we accept as explanations of meaning in everyday practice and shows that in these situations we are explaining the appropriate fit of an item – whether a word or an artwork – with something larger than or outside of itself. This fuller account of meaning explores questions of the meaning of meaning and tackles issues such as whether meaning is just a misleading "folk" term for something more basic, whether there really is meaning at all, and whether we should strive for meaning or let our lives "just be" rather than mean. By taking the problem of meaning out of the technical philosophy of language and providing a more general account Cooper is able to offer new insights into the import, function, and status of meaning that will be of interest not only to philosophers of language but to students and philosophers working in areas such as epistemology and metaphysics.

Perception
  • Barry Maund
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    30 April 2002
  • The philosophical issues raised by perception make it one of the central topics in the philosophical tradition. In this introduction to the philosophy of perception Barry Maund highlights the importance of a good theory of perception not only in an epistemological context but also in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. The book centres on two fundamental and interrelated problems: whether perception is direct or indirect, and what is the best account that we can give of perceptual experiences. The author develops a framework that provides the means for making progress towards solving these problems and sets out a strategy for developing a correct philosophical theory of perception. Among the many ideas discussed are forms of natural realism, representationalism, the argument from illusion, the dual aspect of perceptual experiences (phenomenal character and intentional content), the representationalist or intentionalist theory of phenomenal character, conceptual and non-conceptual forms of content, and adverbialist accounts of perceptual experience. The author argues that most philosophical debates about the respective merits of direct and indirect realism are deeply flawed, and that it is possible to defend a hybrid theory of perceptual experience that has direct and indirect components.

Relativism
  • Paul O'Grady
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    30 September 2002
  • The issue of relativism looms large in many contemporary discussions of knowledge, reality, society, religion, culture and gender. Is truth relative? To what extent is knowledge dependent on context? Are there different logics? Do different cultures and societies see the world differently? Is reality itself something that is constructed? This book offers a path through these debates. O'Grady begins by clarifying what exactly relativism is and how it differs from scepticism and pluralism. He then examines five main types of cognitive relativism: alethic relativism, logical relativism, ontological relativism; epistemological relativism, and relativism about rationality. Each is clearly distinguished and the arguments for and against each are assessed. O'Grady offers a welcome survey of recent debates, engaging with the work of Davidson, Devitt, Kuhn, Putnam, Quine, Rorty, Searle, Winch and Wittgenstein, among others, and he offers a distinct position of his own on this hotly contested issue.

Free Will
  • Graham McFee
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    27 September 2000
  • The question whether human choices and actions are causally determined or are in a way free, and the implications of this for our moral, personal and social lives continues to challenge philosophers. This book explores the determinist rejection of free will through a detailed exposition of the central determinist argument and a consideration of the responses to each of its premises. At every stage familiar examples and case studies help frame and ground the argument. The discussion is at no time peremptory and the invitation to the reader to be drawn in and to contribute to the debate as an engaged participant is palpable in the manner and approach adopted throughout. Free Will will be welcomed by students looking for an engaging and clear introduction to the subject, and as a rigorous exercise in philosophical argument it will serve, for the beginning student new to philosophy, as an excellent springboard into the subject more generally.

Truth
  • Pascal Engel
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    30 June 2002
  • In this critical introduction to contemporary philosophical issues in the theory of truth Pascal Engel provides clear and authoritative exposition of recent and current ideas while providing original perspectives that advances discussion of the key issues. The book begins with a presentation of the classical conceptions of truth – the correspondence theory, the coherence theory and verificationist and pragmatist accounts – before examining so-called "minimalist" and "deflationist" conceptions that deny truth can be anything more than a thin concept holding no metaphysical weight. The debates between those who favour "substantive" conceptions of the classical kind and those who advocate minimalist and deflationist conceptions are explored. Engel argues that, although the minimalist conception of truth is basically right, it does not follow that truth can be eliminated from our philosophical thinking as some upholders of radical deflationist views have claimed. Questions about truth and realism are examined and the author shows how the realism/anti-realism debate remains a genuine, meaningful issue for a theory of truth and has not been undermined by deflationist views. Even if a metaphysical substantive theory of truth has little chance to succeed, Engel concludes, truth can keep a central role within our thinking, as a norm or guiding value of our rational inquiries and practices, in the philosophy of knowledge and in ethics.

Mind and Body
  • Robert Kirk
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    01 August 2003
  • A great deal of work in philosophy today is concerned with some aspect of the complex tangle of problems and puzzles roughly labelled the mind-body problem. This book is an introduction to it. It is a readable, lucid and accessible guide that provides readers with authoritative exposition, and a solid and reliable framework which can be built on as needed. The first chapter briefly introduces the subject and moves on to discuss mechanism – the idea that minds are machines – focusing on Searle's Chinese Room argument. The next three chapters discuss dualism, physicalism, and some hard problems for physicalism, especially those concerning phenomenal consciousness. Chapters on behaviourism and functionalism follow. The central mind-body topics are then each given deeper consideration in separate chapters. Intentionality is investigated via Fodor's doctrine of the Language of Thought, taking account of connectionism. The main theories of consciousness are examined and the author's own approach outlined. The concluding chapter briefly resumes the theme of psychological explanation, linking it to further topics. Each chapter ends with a summary of the main points together with suggestions for further reading.

Rights
  • Duncan Ivison
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    31 December 2007
  • The language of rights pervades modern social and political discourse, yet there is deep disagreement amongst citizens, politicians and philosophers about just what rights are. In this comprehensive and engaging introduction to rights, Duncan Ivison pays particular attention to their political character: the way arguments about rights are characterized by disagreement and conflict and by movement between the moral and the legal and the abstract and the practical. Ivison presents three basic ways of thinking about rights – as statuses, instruments and conduits – and, drawing on the history of political thought and contemporary political theory, explores the different ways these frameworks shape particular theories of rights. He uses some of the current debates over the threat of global terrorism to explore the nature of rights, especially those civil and political rights at the heart of liberal democracy. Various critiques of rights – Marxist, postmodernist and feminist – are examined and the book concludes by exploring what, exactly, we should want from a theory of human rights today and what role this theory should play in global politics. The book offers a distinctive integration of history and theory as applied to questions about the nature of rights today and is ideally suited for students taking courses on moral and political philosophy, political theory and the history of political thought.

Causation and Explanation
  • Stathis Psillos
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    30 September 2002
  • What is the nature of causation? How is causation linked with explanation? Can there be an adequate theory of explanation? These questions and many others are addressed in this unified and rigorous examination of the philosophical problems surrounding causation, laws and explanation. Part 1 of the book explores Hume's views on causation, theories of singular causation, and counterfactual and mechanistic approaches. Part 2 considers the regularity view of laws and laws as relations among universals, as well as recent alternative approaches to laws. Part 3 examines the issues arising from deductive-nomological explanation, statistical explanation, the explanation of laws and the metaphysics of explanation. Accessible to readers of all levels, the book provides an excellent introduction to one of the most enduring problems of philosophy.

Ontology
  • Dale Jacquette
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    30 April 2002
  • The philosophical study of what exists and what it means for something to exist is one of the core concerns of metaphysics. This introduction to ontology provides readers with a comprehensive account of the central ideas of the subject of being. The book is divided into two parts. The first part explores questions of pure philosophical ontology: what is meant by the concept of being, why there exists something rather than nothing, and why there is only one logically contingent actual world. Dale Jacquette shows how logic provides the only possible answers to these fundamental problems. The second part of the book examines issues of applied scientific ontology. Jacquette offers a critical survey of some of the most influential traditional ontologies, such as the distinction between appearance and reality, and the categories of substance and transcendence. The ontology of physical entities; space, time, matter and causation; is examined as well as the ontology of abstract entities such as sets, numbers, properties, relations and propositions. The special problems posed by the subjectivity of mind and of postulating a god are also explored in detail. The final chapter examines the ontology of culture, language and art.

Realism and Anti-Realism
  • Stuart Brock
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    30 March 2007
  • Questions about the plausibility and character of realism and its alternatives are at the heart of all metaphysical disputes today. However it is not a straightforward matter to know when some contentious realm of entities is real, or to understand and appreciate what is at issue between those on either side of the dispute. This book aims to make clear what is really at stake in the contemporary realism debate. The first part of the book examines the realist and anti-realist debate abstracted away from any particular application of it. The authors explain local realism and anti-realism and look at the motivations that might support one position over the other with regard to a particular subject matter. In addition, they examine particular types of global anti-realism – idealism, Kantianism, verificationism – and show how each is motivated by intricate combinations of semantic, epistemological and metaphysical reasons. In the second part of the book the authors explore how the ideas outlined in Part 1 can and have been applied to different subject matters. They examine the respective cases for realism and anti-realism about colours, morality, science, mathematics, modality, and fiction. The authors show that the realism and anti-realism debates within various different domains are much more unified than we are often led to believe, and that a comparison of the realism debates in different areas can give us an appreciation of the need for a kind of consistency in our views that is often lacking. Realism and Anti-Realism offers readers a clear introduction to a subject central to contemporary work in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of language.

Modality
  • Joseph Melia
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    31 March 2003
  • More and more philosophers are using modal notions to solve problems and to analyse concepts. In this introduction to the topic of modality Joseph Melia places his emphasis on a commitment to possible worlds as the best way to understand the nature of necessity. Melia demonstrates how different theories about possible worlds not only influence our more general modal beliefs but illustrate and illuminate various methodological considerations, such as the degree to which any philosophical theory ought to respect common sense. The book begins by introducing readers to various notions of possibility, the de re/de dicto distinction and the ubiquity of our modal concepts. It then presents an accessible introduction to modal logic and possible worlds semantics. Melia argues that by accepting possible worlds into our metaphysics, we can justify such formal semantics, refute Quine's modal scepticism, and make sense of our ordinary thought and talk about the modal. Various theories of possible worlds are critically examined, including David Lewis's extreme realism, Alvin Plantinga's moderate realism, David Armstrong's combinatorialism and the linguistic theory. The book is accessible and engaging throughout and will be welcomed by students looking for a non-technical introduction to a much discussed and contested area of philosophical inquiry.

Action
  • Rowland Stout
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    31 October 2005
  • The traditional focus of debate in philosophy of action has been the causal theory of action and metaphysical questions about the nature of actions as events. This lucid and lively introduction to philosophy of action shows how these issues are subsidiary to more central ones that concern the nature of the will, practical rationality and moral psychology. By focusing on the idea that agency involves causal sensitivity to reasons, Rowland Stout shows how agency becomes one of the most useful ways into the philosophy of mind: if one can understand what it is to be a free and rational agent, then one is some way to understanding what it is to be a conscious subject of experience. Some of the questions considered include: is all action intentional action? Is intentional action characterized by its relation with possible justification? Do beliefs motivate actions, or do facts? What is the nature of the causal process of acting? Are intentions independent components in the explanation of action? Although the traditional Davidsonian agenda remains centre stage throughout, Stout locates it historically, alongside the ideas of Aristotle and Kant, and current issues of interest, like externalism, that move the debate beyond Davidson. Action is a fresh and engaging introduction to the many philosophical problems associated with agency and is ideally suited for students taking courses in philosophy of action, philosophy of mind and metaphysics.

Scepticism
  • Neil Gascoigne
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    31 October 2002
  • The history of scepticism is assumed by many to be the history of failed responses to a problem first raised by Descartes. While the thought of the ancient sceptics is acknowledged, their principle concern with how to live a good life is regarded as bearing little, if any, relation to the work of contemporary epistemologists. In Scepticism Neil Gascoigne engages with the work of canonical philosophers from Descartes, Hume and Kant through to Moore, Austin, and Wittgenstein to show how themes that first emerged in the Hellenistic period are inextricably bound up with the historical development of scepticism. Foremost amongst these is the view that scepticism relates not to the possibility of empirical knowledge but to the possibility of epistemological theory. This challenge to epistemology itself is explored and two contemporary trends are considered: the turn against foundationalist epistemology and towards more naturalistic conceptions of inquiry, and the resistance to this on the part of non-naturalistically inclined philosophers. In contextualizing the debate in this way Gascoigne equips students with a better appreciation of the methodological importance of sceptical reasoning, an analytic understanding of the structure of sceptical arguments, and an awareness of the significance of scepticism to the nature of philosophical inquiry.

Paradox
  • Doris Olin
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    30 June 2002
  • Paradoxes are more than just intellectual puzzles – they raise substantive philosophical issues and offer the promise of increased philosophical knowledge. In this introduction to paradox and paradoxes, Doris Olin shows how seductive paradoxes can be, why they confuse and confound, and why they continue to fascinate. Olin examines the nature of paradox, outlining a rigorous definition and providing a clear and incisive statement of what does and does not count as a resolution of a paradox. The view that a statement can be both true and false, that contradictions can be true, is seen to provide a challenge to the account of paradox resolution, and is explored. With this framework in place, the book then turns to an in-depth treatment of the Prediction Paradox, versions of the Preface/Fallibility Paradox, the Lottery Paradox, Newcomb's Problem, the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Sorites Paradox. Each of these paradoxes is shown to have considerable philosophical punch. Olin unpacks the central arguments in a clear and systematic fashion, offers original analyses and solutions, and exposes further unsettling implications for some of our most deep-seated principles and convictions.

Universals
  • J. P. Moreland
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    28 February 2001
  • Things are particulars and their qualities are universals, but do universals have an existence distinct from the particular things describable by those terms? And what must be their nature if they do? This book provides a careful and assured survey of the central issues of debate surrounding universals, in particular those issues that have been a crucial part of the emergence of contemporary analytic ontology. The book begins with a taxonomy of extreme nominalist, moderate nominalist, and realist positions on properties, and outlines the way each handles the phenomena of predication, resemblance, and abstract reference. The debate about properties and philosophical naturalism is also examined. Different forms of extreme nominalism, moderate nominalism, and minimalist realism are critiqued. Later chapters defend a traditional realist view of universals and examine the objections to realism from various infinite regresses, the difficulties in stating identity conditions for properties, and problems with realist accounts of knowledge of abstract objects. In addition the debate between Platonists and Aristotelians is examined alongside a discussion of the relationship between properties and an adequate theory of existence. The book's final chapter explores the problem of individuating particulars. The book makes accessible a difficult topic without blunting the sophistication of argument required by a more advanced readership.

Death
  • Geoffrey Scarre
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    31 December 2006
  • What is death and why does it matter to us? How should the knowledge of our finitude affect the living of our lives and what are the virtues suitable to mortal beings? Does death destroy the meaningfulness of lives, or would lives that never ended be eternally and absurdly tedious? Can death really be an evil if, after death, we no longer exist as subjects of goods or evils? How should we respond to the deaths of others and do we have any duties towards the dead? These, and many other, questions are addressed in Geoffrey Scarre’s book, which draws upon a wide variety of philosophical and literary sources to offer an up-to-date and highly readable study of some of the major ethical and metaphysical riddles concerning death and dying. Scarre shows that far from being a morbid subject for a philosophy book reflecting on death and its significance doubles as an illuminating way of reflecting on life.

God
  • Jay W. Wood
  • Published by:
    Acumen Publishing
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    30 December 2010
  • Are there adequate reasons to think that God exists? And, if God exists, what is God like? Jay Wood examines these two foundational questions about God, which have exercised philosophers since antiquity. The first part of the book addresses epistemological concerns, focusing on arguments for and against the claim that theism is rationally justifiable. Metaphysical questions about God’s nature, in particular God’s knowledge and power, constitute the second part of the book. Both questions are shown to be related since, if the concept of a God perfect in wisdom, power and goodness is incoherent, it cannot be reasonable to believe that God exists. Wood offers readers a clear and incisive assessment of the core philosophical arguments for the existence of God that will equip the reader with the necessary understanding to tackle more specialized and complex questions in the philosophy of religion.