Ranging over 2,500 years of philosophical writing, this five-volume collection of essays is an unrivalled companion to the study and reading of philosophy. Central Works of Philosophy provides both an overview of particular works and clear and authoritative expositions of their central ideas, giving readers the resources and confidence to read the works themselves. These books offer remarkable insights into the ideas out of which our present ways of thinking emerged and without which they cannot fully be understood.

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? And 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 distinguised 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.

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.

John McDowell's contribution to philosophy has ranged across Greek philosophy, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics and ethics. His writings have drawn on the works of, amongst others, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Sellars, and Davidson. His contributions have made him one of the most widely read, discussed and challenging philosophers writing today. This book provides a careful account of the main claims that McDowell advances in a number of different areas of philosophy. The interconnections between the different arguments are highlighted and Tim Thornton shows how these individual projects are unified in a post-Kantian framework that articulates the preconditions of thought and language. Thornton sets out the differing strands of McDowell's work prior to, and leading up to, their combination in the broader philosophical vision revealed in "Mind and World" and provides an interpretative and critical framework that will help shape ongoing debates surrounding McDowell's work. An underlying theme of the book is whether McDowell's therapeutic approach to philosophy, which owes much to the later Wittgenstein, is consistent with the substance of McDowell's discussion of nature that uses the vocabulary of other philosophers including, centrally, Kant.

This collection of essays showcases the most important and influential philosophical works of the ancient and medieval period, roughly from 600 BC to AD 1600. Each chapter takes a particular work of philosophy and discusses its proponent, its content and central arguments. These are: Plato's Republic; Aristotle' Nichomachean Ethics; Lucretius' On the Nature of the Universe; Sextus Emperiicus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism; Plotinus' The Enneads; Augustine's City of God; Anselm's Proslogion; Aquinas' Summa Theologia; Duns Scotus' Ordinatio; William of Ockham's Summa Logicae .

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.

Ranging over 2,500 years of philosophical writing, this five-volume collection of essays is an unrivalled companion for studying and reading philosophy. Each essay provides an overview of a work and a clear exposition of its central ideas. Covering the most influential works of our greatest philosophers, the series offers remarkable insights into the ideas out of which our present ways of thinking emerged. VOLUME 2 examines the age of rationalism and empiricism, a period of unprecedented philosophical thought that, combined with the scientific revolution, laid the foundations of the modern world. Included are Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Rousseau. Contributors include Janet Broughton, Douglas Burnham, Peter Kail, John Milton, Steven Nadler, Jonathan Riley, John Rogers, and Tom Stoneham.

Ranging over 2,500 years of philosophical writing, this five-volume collection of essays is an unrivalled companion to the study and reading of philosophy. Central Works of Philosophy provides both an overview of particular works and clear and authoritative expositions of their central ideas, giving readers the resources and confidence to read the works themselves. These books offer remarkable insights into the ideas out of which our present ways of thinking emerged and without which they cannot fully be understood. VOLUME 3 introduces readers to the age of idealism, from which twentieth-century Western philosophy emerged. The volume begins with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which determined much of the course of nineteenth-century philosophy, and ends with the moral and political philosophy of Stuart Mill, perhaps the only philosopher in this volume to evade Kant's influence. Also included are works by two post-Kantian idealists, Fichte and Hegel, as well as Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, and Nietzsche. Contributors include Curtis Bowman, Stephen Evans, Michelle Grier, Michael Inwood, Dale Jacquette, Jonathan Riley, Tom Rockmore, and Rex Welshon.

Ranging over 2,500 years of philosophical writing, this five-volume collection of essays is an unrivalled companion for studying and reading philosophy. Each essay provides an overview of a work and a clear exposition of its central ideas. Covering the most influential works of our greatest philosophers, the series offers remarkable insights into the ideas out of which our present ways of thinking emerged. VOLUME 1 offers readers a deep understanding of ancient philosophy and the medieval period in Western Europe during which philosophers sought to harmonize the great thinkers of antiquity with Christian belief. The works of Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Plotinus, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Ockham are considered. Contributors include Hugh H. Benson, Stephen R. L. Clark, Richard Cross, Paula Gottlieb, R.J. Hankinson, Peter King, Christopher Kirwan, Harry Lesser, John Marenbon, and Paul O'Grady.

"Central Works of Philosophy" is a major multi-volume collection of essays on the core texts of the Western philosophical tradition. From Plato's "Republic" to the present day, the five volumes range over 2,500 years of philosophical writing covering the best, most representative, and most influential work of some of our greatest philosophers. Each essay has been specially commissioned and provides an overview of the work, clear and authoritative exposition of its central ideas, and an assessment of the work's importance. Together these books provide an unrivaled companion for studying and reading philosophy, one that introduces the reader to the masterpieces of the western philosophical canon. The period, 1900-60, which this volume covers, witnessed changes in logical and linguistic analysis far beyond anything dreamt of in the previous history of the subject. The volume begins with chapters on the key texts of the Cambridge philosophers, Moore, Russell and Wittgenstein, which together marked the emergence of analytical philosophy. The Vienna Circle of the 1920s, and the development of logical positivism in the 1930s and 1940s are represented by chapters on two fundamental works by Carnap and Ayer. William James' "Pragmatism," which formulated pragmatism's epistemology and made it known throughout the world represents in the volume the distinctive ideas of the American pragmatists. Essays on Husserl's "The Idea of Phenomenology," Heidegger's "Being and Time," Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" and Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomenology of Perception" cover the core texts of the hugely significant phenomenological movement. Of the linguistic philosophy that dominated the English-speaking world in the immediate postwar years, Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" and Ryle's "The Concept of the Mind" are discussed in turn. The volume concludes with Karl Popper's influential account of the nature of science. Volume 4 covers the key works of philosophy written in the period 1900-60, which witnessed developments in logical and linguistic analysis far beyond anything dreamt of in the previous history of the subject. The volume includes chapters on central works by the Cambridge philosophers Moore, Russell and Wittgenstein, which together contributed to the emergence of analytic philosophy. The ideas of the Vienna Circle of the 1920s, and the logical positivism of the 1930s and 1940s are explored in chapters dealing with the works of Carnap and Ayer, and the distinctive ideas of the American pragmatists are discussed in a chapter on William James' Pragmatism, which propagated pragmatism by presenting its central tenets in a clear and accessible form. Essays on Husserl's "The Idea of Phenomenology," Heidegger's "Being and Time," Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" and Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomenology of Perception" cover the core texts of the continental European traditions of phenomenology and existentialism. Of the linguistic philosophy that dominated the English-speaking world in the immediate postwar years, Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" and Ryle's "The Concept of Mind" are discussed in turn. The volume concludes with a chapter on Karl Popper's influential account of the nature of scientific method in his seminal work, "The Logic of Scientific Discovery."