Do human beings have a special and distinguished place in reality? In Idealism and the Harmony of Thought and Reality Thomas Hofweber contends that they do. We are special since there is an intimate connection between our human minds and reality itself. This book defends a form of idealism which holds that our human minds constrain, but do not construct, reality as the totality of facts. Reality as the totality of facts is thus not independent of our minds, and our minds play a metaphysically special role in all of reality. But reality as the totality of things is taken to be completely independent of us. Hofweber's proposed form of conceptual idealism is formulated via the notion of a harmony between our minds and reality. This harmony is defended through considerations in the philosophy of language. How can one possibly defend a metaphysical thesis like idealism from considerations about our own representation? A key step in the book's argument is to consider a special class of concepts--inescapable concepts--which we cannot rationally replace with different ones. This leads to a new approach for making progress in metaphysics--immanent metaphysics--which is broadly neo-Kantian in spirit.

Idealism is a family of metaphysical views each of which gives priority to the mental. The best-known forms of idealism in Western philosophy are Berkeleyan idealism, which gives ontological priority to the mental (minds and ideas) over the physical (bodies), and Kantian idealism, which gives a kind of explanatory priority to the mental (the structure of the understanding) over the physical (the structure of the empirical world). Although idealism was once a dominant view in Western philosophy, it has suffered almost total neglect over the last several decades. This book rectifies this situation by bringing together seventeen essays by leading philosophers on the topic of metaphysical idealism. The various essays explain, attack, or defend a variety of idealistic theories, including not only Berkeleyan and Kantian idealisms but also those developed in traditions less familiar to analytic philosophers, including Buddhism and Hassidic Judaism. Although a number of the articles draw on historical sources, all will be of interest to philosophers working in contemporary metaphysics. This volume aims to spark a revival of serious philosophical interest in metaphysical idealism.

John McDowell is one of the most widely read philosophers in recent years. His engagement with a philosophy of language, mind and ethics and with philosophers ranging from Aristotle and Wittgenstein to Hegel and Gadamer make him one of the most original and outstanding philosophical thinkers of the post-war period. In this clear and engaging book, Tim Thornton introduces and examines the full range of McDowell's thought. After a helpful introduction setting out McDowell's general view of philosophy, Thornton introduces and explains the following topics: Wittgenstein on philosophy, normativity and understanding; value judgements; theories of meaning and sense; singular thought and Cartesianism; perceptual experience and knowledge, disjunctivism and openness to the world; Mind and World, the content of perceptual experience and idealism; action and the debate with Hubert Dreyfus on conceptual content and skilled coping. This second edition has been significantly revised and expanded to include new sections on: McDowell's work on disjunctivism and criticisms of it; a new chapter on McDowell's modification of his account of perceptual experience and conceptual content, and criticisms by Charles Travis; and a new chapter on action and McDowell's engagement with Hubert Dreyfus and the debate concerning skilled coping and mindedness. The addition of a glossary and suggestions for further reading makes John McDowell, second edition essential reading for those studying McDowell, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, ethics and epistemology, as well as for students of the recent history of analytical philosophy generally.

It lies in the very nature of epistemology to question the capability of man’s mind to contact reality and to know what things are in themselves, the validity of all knowledge, and consequently also of science, it at sake. The foundations of human knowledge are challenged, examined and frequently attacked. An acquaintance with this problem and its possible solution will be, therefore, a matter of prime importance for every seeker of the truth and for every student of philosophy.

British philosophy in the last third of the nineteenth and first third of the twentieth centuries.

W. J. Mander examines the nature of idealist ethics: the form and content of ethical belief most typically adopted by philosophical idealists. He identifies a tradition of idealist ethics, before going on to argue that such an approach offers an attractive way of looking at moral questions and has much to contribute to contemporary discussion.

With All Your Mind makes a compelling case for the value of thinking deeply about education in America from a historically orthodox and broadly ecumenical Christian point of view. Few people dispute that education in America is in a state of crisis. But not many have posed workable solutions to this serious problem. Michael Peterson contends that thinking philosophically about education is our only hope for meaningful progress. In this refreshing book, he invites all who are concerned about education in America to "participate" in his study, which analyzes representative theories and practical strategies that reveal the power of Christian ideas in this vital area.

This distinctive text, in its second edition, provides students, teachers, scholars and thinkers with a thorough understanding of various concepts of education in the modern scenario. It deals with important theoretical perspective and new developments in education sector in India. The book will serve highly valuable to the undergraduate students of education (BEd, MEd & MA­—Education). Besides, the aspirants of various competitive exams like Civil Services, UGC, JRF, NET, etc., will also find this text as an indispensable resource. Organized in five units, chapters encompass various pedagogical features of education and their contemporary requirements in the emerging society. This book is thoroughly revised and updated as per the needs of latest syllabi of different universities and institutions. KEY FEATURES • Matter is discussed in lucid and easy to understand manner. • Widely covers Indian and Western Philosophers. • Incorporates diverse range of theoretical approaches of education. • Explores key concepts in education and society. • Concepts are illustrated with the help of flowcharts, figures and tables. NEW TO THE EDITION • Chapters are thoroughly revised along with inclusion of 17 new chapters unit-wise : o Unit I Modern Concept of Education (Ch-4, Ch-5, Ch-6) o Unit II Education and Philosophy (Ch-13, Ch-14, Ch-15, Ch-16) o Unit III Indian and Western Philosophers (Ch-22, Ch-23, Ch-30) o Unit V Education and Society (Ch-39, Ch-40, Ch-41, Ch-42, Ch-49, Ch-58, Ch-59) • Current educational and social problems are discussed elaborately with their solutions. • Besides Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Aurobindo Ghosh, etc., some more educationists like Bertrand Russell and Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan are also introduced in the new edition. • Some common social topics like Awakenism, Humanism, Human Rights, Education for Peace, Education for Social Pollution and Religious Education are included in the current edition. TARGET AUDIENCE • B.Ed. / M.Ed. • MA (Education)

This is the second volume in Jeffrey Hopkins' valuable series on the Mind-Only School of Buddhism and a focal description of it in Dzong-Ka-ba's The Essence of Eloquence. Dzong-Ka-ba (1357-1419) is generally regarded as one of the greatest Tibetan philosophers, and his Mind-Only discourse on emptiness is considered a landmark in Buddhist philosophy. In Volume I, Emptiness in the Mind-Only School of Buddhism, Hopkins provided a translation of the introduction and the section on the Mind-Only School in The Essence of Eloquence. The present volume places this enigmatic and influential exposition in its historical and philosophical contexts. Reflections on Reality conveys the intellectual vibrancy of the different cultural interpretations of this text and expands the key philosophical issues it addresses. Hopkins, one of the leading scholarly voices in Tibetan studies, begins this volume with two introductory chapters contextualizing Tibetan scholarship in general. He then goes on to discuss in detail the religious significance of the central topic of the three natures in the Mind-Only School. He also considers various views on the status of reality, including the doctrine of other-emptiness promulgated by the fourteenth century Jo-nang savant Shay-rap-gyel-tsen. Presenting accurate and insightful translations of a large amount of material that has never been available in English before, he shows how these topics have been debated among scholars in Tibet over six centuries. Comparing these with presentations in Europe, Japan, and the United States today, he created a lively conversation between normally disparate voices.

Though one of the best known and most highly regarded philosophers of his day, Arthur E. Murphy left few books behind, least of all the "big book" he alluded to throughout his life but, for reasons unknown, never published. Reason, Reality, and Speculative Philosophy is derived from that book manuscript, so famous and yet so unknown, and offers at last a clear and definitive statement of Murphy's view of the place and purpose of philosophy. Most of all, this book introduces readers to a genuine lover of wisdom, a philosopher who used ordinary English to address traditional problems of philosophy. Murphy gives a critical account of speculative philosophy and, at the same time, offers a constructive attempt to outline a philosophy true to both reason and reality. In the process, he examines the speculative philosophies of F. H. Bradley, C. S. Peirce, Bertrand Russell, George Santayana, and A. N. Whitehead, among others, and dissects various forms of realism and idealism. His work thus provides a trenchant critique of the major philosophical tendencies of the period from 1890 to 1940. This long-lost work, recovered and edited with expert care by Marcus G. Singer, is a contribution to philosophic reason that is penetrating, comprehensive, witty, and wise.