What is the imagination’s role in human cognition and culture? This book explores the hypothesis that such role is larger than we commonly think: imagination is the key to understand many important domains of our lives – including religion, superstition, and ideology – that are often taken to be the province of belief alone. Combining traditional methods of philosophical inquiry with relevant findings from cognitive and social sciences, the author seeks to provide solid empirical support for that hypothesis, on the one hand, and to explore its important theoretical and practical implications, on the other. A novel, substantive theory of the imagination emerges as a result. Imagination, on this view, does not just allow us to escape from reality into fictional worlds, but plays a key, direct role in our representation of (and practical engagement with) the real world itself.

Higgitt examines Isaac Newton's changing legacy during the nineteenth century. She focuses on 1820–1870, a period that saw the creation of the specialized and secularized role of the "scientist." At the same time, researchers gained better access to Newton's archives. These were used both by those who wished to undermine the traditional, idealised depiction of scientific genius and those who felt obliged to defend Newtonian hagiography. Higgitt shows how debates about Newton's character stimulated historical scholarship and led to the development of a new expertise in the history of science.

What is the imagination’s role in human cognition and culture? This book explores the hypothesis that such role is larger than we commonly think: imagination is the key to understand many important domains of our lives – including religion, superstition, and ideology – that are often taken to be the province of belief alone. Combining traditional methods of philosophical inquiry with relevant findings from cognitive and social sciences, the author seeks to provide solid empirical support for that hypothesis, on the one hand, and to explore its important theoretical and practical implications, on the other. A novel, substantive theory of the imagination emerges as a result. Imagination, on this view, does not just allow us to escape from reality into fictional worlds, but plays a key, direct role in our representation of (and practical engagement with) the real world itself.

Medical knowledge is always in motion. It moves from the lab to the office, from a press release to a patient, from an academic journal to a civil servants desk and then on to a policymaker. These movements matter: value judgements on the validity of certain forms of knowledge determine the direction of clinical research, and policy decisions are taken in relation to existing knowledge. The complexity of medical information and its wider effects is the focus of Movement of knowledge. The authors address the pervasive influence of knowledge in medical and public health settings and scrutinize a range of methodological and theoretical tools to study knowledge. They take a multidisciplinary approach to the medical humanities, presenting both contemporary and historical perspectives in order to explore the borderlands between expertise and common knowledge. Medical knowledge is deconstructed, reconstructed, and transformed as it moves between patients, health providers, and society at large. The acceptance or rejection of treatment protocols based on medical facts has a fundamental impact on us all.

Life itself has long gone unnoticed in Confucian texts since the Qinand Han dynasties, which is similarto the forgetting of Being, per se, inthe Western philosophy after theAxial Period, according to Heidegger. Today, there is a philosophical mission to return life to Confucianism, restoring and reconstructing Confucianism in the perspective of a comparison between Confucianismand Husserl's Phenomenology. The author reduces the features of life to the essence of a thing, butreturns to life as the essence of Being. The author rejects the idea of post-philosophy in order to reconstruct the metaphysicaland the post-metaphysical gradations of Confucianism. These gradations are made along three strata in the life of human beings-no-being of anything (a life comprehension), metaphysical thinghood (the absolute Being), and post-metaphysical things (the relative beings). In this way we have a full understanding of the idea of Confucianism.

A masterpiece in the study of Wang Yangming's (1472-1529) philosophy, this book adopts a holistic approach, integrating philosophical history, comparative philosophy, cultural research and historical documents. The book provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of Wang's philosophy at different stages throughout its maturation so as to sketch the essential character and grand picture of Wang's philosophy. As a systematic study of Wang's philosophy, this monograph boasts a broad perspective, profound discourse and substantial historical data. It is a perfect manifestation of the author's academic accomplishment and presents the readers with a panorama of Wang's studies. Although the book is focused primarily on Wang, its scope and methodology carry great implications for the study of Song and Ming Confucianism and even ancient Chinese philosophy as a whole.

How does the future of the concept of the "Political" appear in a world marked by two apparently opposite trends: the tendency towards globalization and that of reconstituting new forms of sovereignty? The book represents the first theoretically updated contribution on the perspectives of politics in the current phase of "interregnum" between the "not-more" of the old international order and the "not-yet" of a new supranational or transnational order that is struggling to take shape.

Nishida, who was active from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th, was one of the first generation of Japanese philosophers who attempted to develop an original philosophy under the influence of (and in response to) Western philosophy. In Japan, he has often been interpreted in the context of Eastern thought and Zen Buddhism, as well as in relation to phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger). This book presents an alternative reading of Nishida, by highlighting the influence of William James, Neo-Kantianism, and Henri Bergson on his thought, and by discerning in his ideas a line of development parallel to that of the mid-20th century philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

Far from being the sole mode of explaining, explanation in terms of – mostly probabilistic – causes has nourished a wide debate addressing diseases, what produces them and how. Focusing on causal explanations involves, in turn, getting deeper into conceptions of causation, modelling, and control, and presents a range of relevant issues for research and clinical contexts. The aim of the volume is two-fold. In the first place, its purpose is to stress core features, differences and interactions between various theories belonging to, on the one hand, the mechanical and neo-mechanical approach to explanation, and, on the other hand, the interventionist approach, testing their suitability in medicine. In the second place, and related to the first, a form of pluralism is advocated which is grounded on a deep analysis of specific features of explanatory contexts in the health sciences, especially in cancer and mental health studies.

A critique of rationalism, this book aims to explain both its powerful contributions to mathematics and the physical sciences, where our arithmetical, geometrical, and mechanical intuitions have had a highly productive role in the development of pure theory, and its disastrous failures in cosmology and the moral sciences. In these supposed sciences, rationalism has all but destroyed the social conscience of the West by creating the disastrous political philosophy of neoliberalism. To reset our moral compasses, we must develop new, socially just versions of the old welfare states. And to restore democracy we must return to Keynesian economic management.

Should we blame our neighbour for forgetting to water our plants? To what extent are people responsible for the consequences of their actions? When is it fair to condemn a wrongdoer? Practical philosophy has a long-standing interest in the mechanisms that drive responsibility ascriptions (how and why should we hold people responsible?), and in the conditions that make those ascriptions legitimate (when is it fair to do so?). By default, healthy adults whose behaviour is interpretable by reference to their psychological makeup are held responsible for their actions. However, in the last few decades in particular, the scope and meaning of the notion of responsibility have been targeted by growing scepticism. In its first part, this volume explores and discusses the most promising accounts of responsibility emerging in the philosophical debate on the topic. In the second part, the book outlines a novel proposal about the enabling conditions, the meaning and the intersubjective role of responsibility ascriptions.

Steven Pinker’s book 'Enlightenment Now' establishes that great progress has been made on the aims of the European Enlightenment. However, the minds of many economists, moralists and political thinkers in the West are still set firmly in the eighteenth century. Progress has been due mainly to the physical scientific revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the industrial revolutions they generated. A new enlightenment is needed to overcome this poverty of social theory, and bring our economists and political theorists up to date in the socially connected, commercially integrated and existentially threatened world of the 21st century.

This book stresses the importance of returning to David Hume’s political thought, focusing on his ideas about the origin of government and political obedience, and his vision of the ideals of liberty, property, political stability, and moderation, all of which represent a precious source of inspiration for the development of political conservatism. Spartaco Pupo outlines the principle, counter-revolutionary features that characterise Hume’s conservatism: political realism; mistrust of sudden and violent innovations; scepticism toward abstractions; opposition to rationalist arrogance; respect for custom and institutional continuity; the need for the preservation of stability; rejection of ideological rhetoric, sectarianism, and dogmatism; constant denial of intellectual subsidies; and the defence of the national interest. In so doing, Pupo argues that Hume’s ‘sceptical’ and ‘secular’ version of conservatism – the fi rst to appear on the political scene of modernity – differs signifi cantly from the Anglo-American conservatism that was to arise a few decades after his death, in the wake of Edmund Burke’s writings.

The present volume compiles translations of hitherto neglected texts in Asian philosophical traditions, along with several critical essays dealing with the philosophical issues of translating them into western languages. As the inaugural volume to a proposed series dedicated to making hidden primary sources of Asian philosophies available to the wider audience in western academia and beyond, this book treats diverse primary sources written by a broad range of thinkers from various historical periods and intellectual traditions, including the Indian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, among others. The translations, accompanied by critical essays, will shed light on major philosophical movements as Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism and others, thereby demonstrating multilayered development of intellectual traditions in Asia.

In most Western university studies, Greek philosophy is considered the most ancient kind of wisdom, but the Zoroastrian way of life can be traced back to the second millennium BC. The Gathas, hymns or songs attributed to Zarathustra, hold an existential and practical philosophy avant la lettre. It is based on mental exercises and on rituals that have survived thanks to the Zoroastrian religious communities. Not only does the Persian thinker unveil a mental wisdom for us; he also introduces us to an ecological concern and a social practice. There is a cosmopolite dimension to Zarathustra’s proto-philosophy that we can all apply in a personal way.

The world of the image has traditionally been considered as different and separate from the real world. This separation has been ensured by some kind of framing device, be it the pedestal of a statue, the frame of a painting, or the cinema screen. However, recent developments in image-making techniques have resulted in the production of hyper-realistic, immersive, and interactive virtual environments that make the threshold between image and reality blur, thus eliciting in the experiencer a strong feeling of being incorporated into a quasi-real world. This book introduces the concept of “un-framing” as a key to understanding this radically new iconoscape.