As John O'Loughlin's mature works became increasingly aphoristic and hence, to his mind, increasingly metaphysical, with what he would regard as truth effectively eclipsing the fumblingly discursive nature of essays and, indeed, knowledge generally, he totally abandoned both the essays (as here) and the dialogues (published in a separate collective volume), together with such early aphoristic material that at least had the merit, so far as he was concerned, of anchoring him in a more genuine approach to philosophy than could ever be found in works of a philosophical nature diluted by prose and, hence, by a discursive want of both logic and system unworthy, in his estimation, of true philosophy. Nonetheless, the reader will be aware that philosophical essays are still distinct from literary prose, all the more so when, as in this volume and various others, the material has been centred, the better to intimate of a sort of metaphysical aloofness from the pedament-slaving world which customarily fights shy, in the angularity of its untransvaluated nature, of anything resembing, no matter how metaphorically, the curvilinear subjectivity of a dome, particularly when intimating, in true religious vein, of transcendental possibility, a possibility very much a part of the best of the essays included in this one-volume presentation, spanning the years 1977–84, of John O'Loughlin's literary output. – A Centretruths Editorial

Having already published his essays in two volumes of 'Collected Essays', viz. A Knowledgeable Approach to Truth & A Truthful Approach to Knowledge, the former of which included an aphoristic appendix, author John O'Loughlin has decided to republish them in one volume (minus the aphorisms) for convenience's sake, in the interests, one might say, of structural and thematic continuity together with a certain essayistic purism that sets definite bounds to the scope and style of the contents, dovetailed, as they are, into a somewhat voluminous but nonetheless highly accessible project whose material spans the period 1977-84, during which all of most of his early philosophical writings were composed. - A Centretruths editorial

Colin Wilson’s first book The Outsider was published to great critical acclaim in May 1956. It was the first of six philosophical books, known collectively as ‘The Outsider Cycle’, compiled by Wilson during the following decade. A summary volume, Introduction to the New Existentialism, appeared in 1966. During the 1970s, however, Wilson’s interests became, on the surface, more varied, publishing books on criminology, psychology and the occult. But he always maintained a philosophical stance, irrespective of subject matter, and continued to write purely philosophical essays for journals, magazines, and symposia. This volume brings together, for the first time, his essays on seventeen philosophers, including some of those he met personally to discuss their ideas. In his essay on Spinoza he wrote: “Philosophers are never so entertaining – or so instructive – as when they are beating one another over the head.” It is that statement, applied to this particular volume, that makes these essays, from England’s only home-grown existential philosopher, so eminently readable, entertaining, instructive and, sometimes, controversial.

First published in 1966. This collection of essays dates from the first decade of this century and marks an important perio in the evolution of Bertrand Russell's thought. Russell intended the collection 'to appeal to those who take an interest in philosophical questions without having had a professional training in philosophy'- those people will find these writings just as illuminating today.

In what sense does time exist? Is it an objective feature of the external world? Or is its real nature dependent on the way man experiences it? Has modern science brought us closer to the answer to St. Augustine's exasperated outcry, 'What, then, is time?' ? Ever since Aristotle, thinkers have been struggling with this most confounding and elusive of philosophical questions. How long does the present moment last? Can we make statements about the future that are clearly true or clearly false? And if so, must we be fatalists? This volume presents twenty-three discussions of the problem of time. A section on classical and modern attempts at definition is followed by four groups of essays drawn largely from contemporary philosophy, each preface with an introduction by the editor. First, in a chapter entitled 'The Static versus the Dynamic Temporal', four philosophers advance solutions to McTaggart's famous proof of time's unreality. In the next two sections, the discussion turns to the meaning of the 'open future' and to the much-debated nature of 'human time'. Finally, modern science and philosophy tackle Zeno's celebrated paradoxes. The essays by Adolf Grnbaum, Nicholas Rescher, and William Barrett are published for the first time in this volume.

The two volumes of Philosophical Essays bring together the most important essays written by one of the world's foremost philosophers of language. Scott Soames has selected thirty-one essays spanning nearly three decades of thinking about linguistic meaning and the philosophical significance of language. A judicious collection of old and new, these volumes include sixteen essays published in the 1980s and 1990s, nine published since 2000, and six new essays. The essays in Volume 1 investigate what linguistic meaning is; how the meaning of a sentence is related to the use we make of it; what we should expect from empirical theories of the meaning of the languages we speak; and how a sound theoretical grasp of the intricate relationship between meaning and use can improve the interpretation of legal texts. The essays in Volume 2 illustrate the significance of linguistic concerns for a broad range of philosophical topics--including the relationship between language and thought; the objects of belief, assertion, and other propositional attitudes; the distinction between metaphysical and epistemic possibility; the nature of necessity, actuality, and possible worlds; the necessary a posteriori and the contingent a priori; truth, vagueness, and partial definition; and skepticism about meaning and mind. The two volumes of Philosophical Essays are essential for anyone working on the philosophy of language.

This book collects fifteen major philosophical essays spanning more than twenty years by acclaimed Italian philosopher and author of State of Exception. Giorgio Agamben is one of contemporary philosophy’s most influential thinkers on the subjects of language, power, society. This collection of essays opens with an enlightening introduction by the translator Daniel Heller-Roazen, who situates Agamben’s work with respect to both the history of philosophy and contemporary European thought. The essays that follow articulate a series of theoretical confrontations with privileged figures in the history of philosophy, politics, and criticism, from Plato to Spinoza, Aristotle to Deleuze, Carl Schmitt to Benjamin, Hegel to Aby Warburg, and Heidegger to Derrida. Three fundamental concepts organize the collection as a whole: the existence of language; the nature of history; and the problem of potentiality in metaphysics, ethics, and the philosophy of language. All these topics converge in the final part of the book, in which Agamben offers an extensive reading of Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” as a work that puts potentiality and actuality, possibility and reality, in a new light.

Gilbert Ryle was one of the most important and controversial philosophers of the Twentieth century. Long unavailable, Critical Essays: Collected Papers Volume 1 includes many of Ryle’s most important and thought-provoking papers. This volume contains 20 critical essays on the history of philosophy, with writing on Plato, Locke and Hume as well as important chapters on Russell and Wittgenstein. It also includes three essays on phenomenology, including Ryle’s famous review of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time first published in 1928. Although Ryle believed phenomenology ‘will end in self-ruinous subjectivism or in a windy mysticism’ his review also acknowledged that Heidegger was a thinker of great originality and importance. While surveying the developments in the philosophy of language and philosophical logic, Ryle sets out his own conception of the philosophers’ role against that of his predecessors and contemporaries. Together with the second volume of Ryle’s collected papers Collected Papers Volume 2 and the new edition of The Concept of Mind, all published by Routledge, these outstanding essays represent the very best of Ryle’s work. Each volume contains a substantial introduction by Julia Tanney, and both are essential reading for any student of twentieth-century philosophies of mind and language. Gilbert Ryle (1900 -1976) was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysics and Fellow of Magdalen College Oxford, an editor of Mind, and a president of the Aristotelian Society. Julia Tanney is Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent, and has held visiting positions at the University of Picardie and Paris-Sorbonne.

A superb text for teaching the philosophy of Descartes, this volume includes all his major works in their entirety, important selections from his lesser known writings, and key selections from his philosophical correspondence. The result is an anthology that enables the reader to understand the development of Descartes’s thought over his lifetime. Includes a biographical Introduction, chronology, bibliography, and index.