The Critique of Impure Reason: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning comprises a major and important contribution to philosophy. It inaugurates a revolutionary paradigm shift in philosophical thought by providing compelling and long-sought-for solutions to a wide range of philosophical problems. In the process, the massive work fundamentally transforms the way in which the concepts of reference, meaning, and possibility are understood. The book includes a Foreword by the celebrated German philosopher and physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason we find an analysis of the preconditions of experience and of knowledge. In contrast, but yet in parallel, the new Critique focuses upon the ways—unfortunately very widespread and often unselfconsciously habitual—in which many of the concepts that we employ conflict with the very preconditions of meaning and of knowledge. This is a book about the boundaries of frameworks and about the unrecognized conceptual confusions in which we become entangled when we attempt to transgress beyond the limits of the possible and meaningful. We tend either not to recognize or not to accept that we all-too-often attempt to trespass beyond the boundaries of the frameworks that make knowledge possible and the world meaningful. The Critique of Impure Reason proposes a bold, ground-breaking, and startling thesis: that a great many of the major philosophical problems of the past can be solved through the recognition of a viciously deceptive form of thinking to which philosophers as well as non-philosophers commonly fall victim. For the first time, the book advances and justifies the criticism that a substantial number of the questions that have occupied philosophers fall into the category of “impure reason,” violating the very conditions of their possible meaningfulness. The purpose of the study is twofold: first, to enable us to recognize the boundaries of what is referentially forbidden—the limits beyond which reference becomes meaningless—and second, to avoid falling victims to a certain broad class of conceptual confusions that lie at the heart of many major philosophical problems. As a consequence, the boundaries of possible meaning are determined. Bartlett, the author or editor of more than 20 books, is responsible for identifying this widespread and delusion-inducing variety of error, metalogical projection. It is a previously unrecognized and insidious form of erroneous thinking that undermines its own possibility of meaning. It comes about as a result of the pervasive human compulsion to seek to transcend the limits of possible reference and meaning. Based on original research and rigorous analysis combined with extensive scholarship, the Critique of Impure Reason develops a self-validating method that makes it possible to recognize, correct, and eliminate this major and pervasive form of fallacious thinking. In so doing, the book provides at last provable and constructive solutions to a wide range of major philosophical problems. CONTENTS AT A GLANCE Preface Foreword by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Acknowledgments Avant-propos: A philosopher’s rallying call Introduction A note to the reader A note on conventions PART I WHY PHILOSOPHY HAS MADE NO PROGRESS AND HOW IT CAN 1 Philosophical-psychological prelude 2 Putting belief in its place: Its psychology and a needed polemic 3 Turning away from the linguistic turn: From theory of reference to metalogic of reference 4 The stepladder to maximum theoretical generality PART II THE METALOGIC OF REFERENCE A New Approach to Deductive, Transcendental Philosophy 5 Reference, identity, and identification 6 Self-referential argument and the metalogic of reference 7 Possibility theory 8 Presupposition logic, reference, and identification 9 Transcendental argumentation and the metalogic of reference 10 Framework relativity 11 The metalogic of meaning 12 The problem of putative meaning and the logic of meaninglessness 13 Projection 14 Horizons 15 De-projection 16 Self-validation 17 Rationality: Rules of admissibility PART III PHILOSOPHICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE METALOGIC OF REFERENCE Major Problems and Questions of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Science 18 Ontology and the metalogic of reference 19 Discovery or invention in general problem-solving, mathematics, and physics 20 The conceptually unreachable: “The far side” 21 The projections of the external world, things-in-themselves, other minds, realism, and idealism 22 The projections of time, space, and space-time 23 The projections of causality, determinism, and free will 24 Projections of the self and of solipsism 25 Non-relational, agentless reference and referential fields 26 Relativity physics as seen through the lens of the metalogic of reference 27 Quantum theory as seen through the lens of the metalogic of reference 28 Epistemological lessons learned from and applicable to relativity physics and quantum theory PART IV HORIZONS 29 Beyond belief 30 Critique of Impure Reason: Its results in retrospect SUPPLEMENT The Formal Structure of the Metalogic of Reference APPENDIX I: The Concept of Horizon in the Work of Other Philosophers APPENDIX II: Epistemological Intelligence References Index About the author

Thanks to the enormous progress of neuroscience over the past few decades, we can now monitor the passage of initial stimulations to certain points in the brain. In spite of these findings, however, subjective consciousness still remains an unsolved mystery. This volume exposes neuroscience and cognitive science to philosophical analysis and proposes that we think of our conscious states of mind as a composite phenomenon consisting of three layers: neuronal events, somatic markers, and explicit consciousness. While physics and chemistry can and have been successfully employed to describe the causal relation between the first two layers, the further step to articulate consciousness is purely interpretative and points to the preponderant importance of language. Language is essential for the transformation of inchoate, not very informative somatic markers and mere moods into full consciousness and appraised emotion. Munz uses literary examples to shift our understanding of the mind away from computational models and to show how eloquence about our states of mind is manufactured rather than caused. He firmly rejects the efforts of both Freud and non-Freudian psychologists to find a scientific explanation for such manufacture and to make a science out of the eloquence of folk psychology. Instead he argues that the many ways eloquence is being manufactured to transform somatic markers into conscious states of mind are best accounted for in terms of Wittgenstein's conception of language games. This volume challenges most current thinking about consciousness and mind and will appeal to philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and linguists.

Plato's Critique of Impure Reason offers a dramatic interpretation of the Republic, at the center of which lies a novel reading of the historical person of Socrates as the "real image" of the good

The book juxtaposes key texts from Foucault and Habermas; it then adds a set of reactions and commentaries by theorists who have taken up the two alternative approaches to power and critique. The result is a guide for those seeking to understand and build on an unfinished debate between two of the 20th century's most important philosophers. Which paradigm of critique—Foucault's or Habermas's—is philosophically and practically superior, especially with regard to the nature and role of power in contemporary society? In shaping this collection, Michael Kelly has sought to address this question in relation to the ethical, political, and social theory of the past two decades. Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas had only just begun to come to terms with one another's work when Foucault died in 1984; they had even discussed the possibility of a formal debate on "Enlightenment" in the neutral arena of the United States. In the decade since, Habermas and his supporters have continued to respond to Foucault in various ways, but Foucault's followers have not shown as strong an inclination to keep up his side of the dialogue. For this reason an invaluable exchange on the nature and limits of philosophy in the present age has never achieved its full potential. In this anthology Michael Kelly recasts the debate in a way that will open it up for further development. The book starts by juxtaposing key texts from the two philosophers; it then adds a set of reactions and commentaries by theorists who have taken up the two alternative approaches to power and critique. (Two of these essays were written especially for this volume.) The result is a guide for those seeking to understand and build on this important but unfinished debate. Essays by: Michel Foucault. Jürgen Habermas. Axel Honneth. Nancy Fraser. Richard Bernstein. Thomas McCarthy. James Schmidt and Thomas E. Wartenberg. Gilles Deleuze. Jana Sawicki. Michael Kelly.

A collection of 14 essays, seven previously published, analyzing the nature of power in society and personal lives. The different perspectives and divergent conclusions share assumptions that power is important, that previous analyses are inadequate, and that the only reason to talk about it is in order to improve people's lives. No index. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

The Platonic tradition affords extraordinary resources for thinking about the meaning and value of work. In this historical survey of the tradition, Jeffrey Hanson draws on the work of its major thinkers to explain why our contemporary vocabulary for appraising labor and its rewards is too narrow and cramped. By tracing out the Platonic lineage of work Hanson is able to argue why we should be explaining its value for appraising it as an element of a happy and flourishing human life, quite apart from its financial rewards. Beginning with Plato's extensive thinking about work's relationship to wisdom, Hanson covers the singularly powerful arguments of Augustine, who wrote the ancient world's only treatise dedicated to the topic of manual labor. He discusses Bernard of Clairvaux, introduces the priest-craftsman Theophilus Presbyter, and provides a study of work and leisure in the writings of Petrarch. Alongside Martin Luther, Hanson discusses John Ruskin and Simone Weil: two thinkers profoundly disturbed by the conditions of the working class in the rapidly industrializing economies of Europe. This original study of Plato and his inheritors' ideas provides practical suggestions for how to approach work in a socially responsible manner in the 21st century and reveals the benefits of linking work and morality.

Based on the premise that the modem discourse of enlightenment and its self-critique began in the eighteenth century, Impure Reason provides a fresh look at the controversy through cultural, social, and political history, confronting the often abstract theories of a dialectics of enlightenment with concrete historical studies of the Age of Enlightenment. This volume brings together current research on the German Enlightenment in order to familiarize an American audience with the period that gave rise to Lessing, Kant, and Goethe-as well as to other important figures who are practically unknown outside of German studies. Leading scholars on eighteenth-century German society, politics, literature, and culture bring a uniquely American perspective to the project, with critiques that generally have not been voiced in Germany. Their essays, which represent a wide range of attitudes toward enlightenment, cover topics as varied as the debate on colonialism; the difficulties of diversity; the use and abuse of reading; male sexuality in enlightenment self-critique; medicine, patriarchy, and heterosexuality; art and social discipline; disturbed mourning and the Enlightenment's flight from the body; and women possessed by the devil. Modem critics and defenders of enlightenment who are discussed in the essays include Horkheimer and Adorno (who are themselves subjected to a genderbased critique), Jurgen Habermas, Jean-Franvois Lyotard, Manfred Frank, Richard Rorty, and Christa Wolf. Impure Reason will interest scholars in German studies, gender studies, history, philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, and other fields. The volume will also help introduce scholars and other interested readers outside the area of German studies to the particularly German tradition of Enlightenment critique and its status today.

Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a wealth of discussion and controversy about the idea of a ‘postnational’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ politics. But while there are many normative theories of cosmopolitanism, as well as some cosmopolitan theories of globalization, there has been little attempt to grapple systematically with fundamental questions of structure and action from a ‘cosmopolitan point of view.’ Drawing on Kant‘s cosmopolitan writings and Habermas‘s critical theory of society, Brian Milstein argues that, before we are members of nations or states, we are participants in a ‘commercium’ of global interaction who are able to negotiate for ourselves the terms on which we share the earth in common with one another. He marshals a broad range of literature from philosophy, sociology, and political science to show how the modern system of sovereign nation-states destructively constrains and distorts these relations of global interaction, leading to pathologies and crises in present-day world society.

Contemporary Critical Theory and Methodology is unique in presenting the first critical collection of texts dealing with the debate between critical theory and pragmatism. Piet Strydom focuses in particular on the implications that the relation between the two has for the methodology and research practice of contemporary critical theory.

This book is a meticulous argument for the contemporary value of Marx's democratic theory as an interpretive key for the postmodernism debates. Landry uses the works of Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard to represent the poststructuralist camp and the writings of Habermas to represent the rationalist camp. Viable social critique, argues Landry, mediates between pure social constructivist and pure realist metaphysics. Postmodernism, although critical of Marx, aided the broader project of critical social theory, particularly Marx's critique of social-material contexts of oppression. Indeed, significant positive affiliations among Marx, Habermas, and the poststructuralists are found in their commitment to criticizing ideological aspects of bourgeois Enlightenment rationality and modernity. Landry employs a fruitful tension strategy as seeking rapprochement among the modern and postmodern positions on hotly debated contemporary issues such as subjectivity, criticism, and the nature of reason. Marxism continues to provide critical tools for articulating productive conflict within the postmodernism debates, advancing of strategies of critique beyond identity politics toward a more self-reflective ideological discussion of the multiple axes of power and oppression in political struggles over democracy. In this unique study, complex philosophical issues are described lucidly and their relevance for today is established compellingly.