Filosofische inleiding tot het fenomeen vriendschap, mede aan de hand van het gedachtegoed van denkers uit het verre en nabije verleden.

Uitleg over hoe de wereld kan veranderen als de mens zijn ego-gerichte bewustzijn transformeert.

Nicholas Rescher presents a critical reaction against two currently influential tendencies of thought. On the one hand, he rejects the facile relativism that pervades contemporary social and academic life. On the other hand, he opposes the rationalism inherent in neo-contractarian theory - both in the idealized communicative-contract version promoted in continental European political philosophy by Jurgen Habermas, and in the idealized social-contract version of the theory of political justice promoted in the Anglo-American context by John Rawls. Against such tendencies, Professor Rescher's pluralist approach takes a more realistic and pragmatic line, eschewing the convenient recourse of idealization in cognitive and practical matters. Instead of a utopianism that looks to a uniquely perfect order that would prevail under ideal conditions, he advocates incremental improvements within the framework of arrangements that none of us will deem perfect but that all of us 'can live with'. Such an approach replaces the yearning for an unattainable consensus with the institution of pragmatic arrangements in which the community will acquiesce - not through agreeing on their optimality, but through a shared recognition among the dissonant parties that the available options are even worse.

Max Weber (1894-1920) is generally recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern sociology. This collection pays homage to his influence, not just within sociology, but also political theory, science and religion

Een longarts die veel patiënten in hun terminale levensfase behandelt, vertelt over de dilemma's daarbij, zowel voor de behandelaar als voor de patiënt.

For the greater part of this century, most philosophers and social scientists have eschewed moral realism. According to their view, moral facts cannot be accommodated by a suitably scientific picture of the world. However, recent developments in moral theory, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of language have undermined the standard arguments against moral realism and have led many to maintain that there are powerful reasons for believing in moral facts. As a result, moral realism is enjoying renewed vitality, while the arguments against it have of necessity become more sophisticated and penetrating.

This collection of influential essays illustrates the range, depth, and importance of moral realism, the fundamental issues it raises, and the problems it faces. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord has chosen accessible, rigorous, and thought-provoking papers, all of which are rich enough to encourage and reward several readings and careful study. In addition, the volume strikes a balance between wide-ranging papers that advance a barrage of arguments, and more focused papers that develop a few arguments in great detail. What emerges is a comprehensive overview of the moral realism debate that exhibits the scope, as well as the intricacies, of the arguments marshaled on all sides. It will be welcomed by scholars and students of philosophy, the social sciences, and political science.

CONTRIBUTORS: A. J. Ayer, Simon Blackburn, Richard Boyd, Gilbert

Harman, Jonathan Lear,' J. L. Mackie, John McDowell, Mark Platts,

Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Nicholas Sturgeon, David Wiggins, Bernard

Williams.

Consequentialism, a moral doctrine that asserts that the right act in any given situation is the one that will produce the best overall outcome, as judged from an impersonal standpoint that gives equal weight to all interests, has been criticized on the grounds that it fails to capture the most crucial features of moral thinking and cannot, when worked out in detail, provide an adequate account of morality. In this anthology, distinguished scholars--Thomas Nagel, T. M. Scanlon, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Samuel Scheffler, Conrad D. Johnson, Bernard Williams, Peter Railton, Amartya Sen, Philippa Foot, and Derek Parfit--debate arguments for and against consequentialism to present a complete view of this significant area in moral philosophy.

Dame Iris Murdoch, who has written several works of philosophy as well as twenty-four distinguished novels, now crowns her philosophic quest with a book that asks many questions and reflects on the essential aspects of the great subject: moral philosophy. Among her concerns are the roles literature, politics, art, and science play in the search for morality in a world that avoids the issue. What is morality, after all, Murdoch asks. Is it important? Is it true? Can it be taught in schools? Is it the very basis of our existence, or is it just one of many peripheral matters? A main theme of this profound work concerns religion and its relation to morals, to moral philosophy, and to the great metaphysical systems which have supported it in the past. These are questions that concern us all, as we are driven to reflect upon the relation between religion and morals and upon the various conceptions of what religion is. Iris Murdoch believes it is time for a dialogue between moral philosophy and a demythologizing theology. She casts fresh light on our great western metaphysicians, Plato and Kant. She writes that philosophy is now in danger of being fragmented into psychology, sociology, anthropology, and other peripheral disciplines. Some universities are closing their philosophy departments. Moral philosophy (ethics), if considered at all, tends to be segregated as a small, special subject. Technology, so beneficial in innumerable ways, displays to us a vast, colorful world of facts within which "moral value" may appear as a little particular item. In her lucid and tightly reasoned "reflections," Dame Iris Murdoch constructs a warning that the survival of philosophy with its persistent ever-new attempts to seek "foundations" is more than ever essential, when the very question of "human being" is at stake. A grand work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time.

This book is a well informed and discriminating account of the main ethical problems that have been discussed this century in England, France, and the U.S. Besides dealing with key concepts in the work of Ayer, Hare, Moore, Nowell-Smith, Prichard, Ross, Sartre, Stevenson, Urmson, and Wittgenstein, this third edition includes a discussion of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice.

In this book the author examines the notion of a "right" and its relation to other moral, legal, and political notions, which often accompany it. In stressing the variety of things to which we are said to have rights, he aims to free the analysis of the notion from the narrow restrictions to which many philosophers and jurisprudents confine it. By examining in close detail the logical and linguistic features, not only of "a right" but also for "liberty", "privilege", "power", and "claim", etc. he tries to establish the exact position in our thinking of these notions and to disprove many current theories about them and their inter-relations.

Based on extensive fieldwork, this book explores the Lahu society in Southwest China where practical gender equality has become the byproduct of a potent ideology of gender unity, vividly expressed by the proverb, "chopsticks only work in pairs."

What is ethics? Where does it come from? Can we really hope to find any rational way of deciding how we ought to live? If we can, what would it be like, and how are we going to know when we have found it? To capture the essentials of what we know about the origins and nature of ethics, Peter Singer has drawn on anthropology, evolution, game theory, and works of fiction, in addition to the classic moral philosophy of such thinkers as Nietzsche, Kant, and Confucius. By choosing some of the finest pieces of writing, old and new, in and about ethics, he conveys the intellectual excitement of the search for answers to basic questions about how we ought to live. From the debates of Socrates and the profound writing of Rousseau to Jane Goodall's reflections on the ethics of chimpanzee kinship and Luther's commentary on the Sixth Commandment (thou shalt not kill), this engaging reader offers a complete and thorough introduction to the fascinating world of ethical debate.

Presents the major issues in Aristotle's writings on Friendship.

This is an important full-length study of the work of this controversial thinker by leading political philosophers and social theorists, and includes a reply written by MacIntyre.

In unraveling the long-hidden issues of the most famous free speech case of all time, noted author I.F. Stone ranges far and wide over Roman as well as Greek history to present an engaging and rewarding introduction to classical antiquity and its relevance to society today. The New York Times called this national best-seller an "intellectual thriller."

Under what conditions can moral claims be said to be true? Copp's book explores this question, starting from a new cognitivist theory of normative judgement - the "standard-based theory" - which offers a schematic account of the truth conditions of normative propositions of all kinds, including moral propositions and propositions about reasons. According to the theory, a moral proposition is true only if a corresponding moral standard is relevantly justified. At the heart of the book is a theory of the circumstances under which moral standards qualify as justified, the "society-centered theory". Copp argues that because any society needs a social moral code in order to enable its members to live together successfully, and because it would be rational for a society to choose such a code, certain moral codes, and the standards they include, are justified. The standard-based theory says, then, that corresponding moral propositions may therefore be true. Offering new perspectives on reason and rational choice, Copp's approach to morality and normativity raises a number of important issues in moral theory, as well as in metaphysics and the philosophy of language.

Provocative and sophisticated, Truth in Aquinas is a fascinating re-evaluation of a key area - truth - in the work of Thomas Aquinas. John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock's provocative but strongly argued position is that many of the received views of Aquinas as philosopher and theologian are wrong.
This compelling and controversial work builds on the amazing reception of Radical Orthodoxy (Routledge, 1999).

One of the twentieth century's most original and controversial philosophical thinkers, Robert Nozick brilliantly renews Socrates' quest to uncover the life that is worth living. In The Examined Life, Nozick meditates on the age-old subjects of death, sexuality, happiness, politics, God - the central questions of our existence- Through these philosophical essays, written in his trademark accessible and practical style, Nozick inspires personal reflection and poses compelling new questions about how we think about ourselves and the world around us. From the introduction, where Nozick states, "My concern in writing here is the whole of our being; I would like to speak to your whole being, and to write from mine," to the notorious essay "The Zigzag of Politics," where Nozick refutes his earlier claims of libertarianism, this book proves itself a modern masterpiece of philosophy. Convincing, insightful, challenging, The Examined Life is an enthralling journey into the self, and into one of the great philosophical minds of our time.

In this profound and yet accessible book, John Kekes discusses moral wisdom: a virtue essential to living a morally good and personally satisfying life. He advances a broad, nontechnical argument that considers the adversities inherent in the human condition and assists in the achievement of good lives.

The possession of moral wisdom, Kekes asserts, is a matter of degree: more of it makes lives better, less makes them worse. Exactly what is moral wisdom, however, and how should it be sought? Ancient Greek and medieval Christian philosophers were centrally concerned with it. By contrast, modern Western sensibility doubts the existence of a moral order in reality; and because we doubt it, and have developed no alternatives, we have grown dubious about the traditional idea of wisdom.

Kekes returns to the classical Greek sources of Western philosophy to argue for the contemporary significance of moral wisdom. He develops a proposal that is eudaimonistic--secular, anthropocentric, pluralistic, individualistic, and agonistic. He understands moral wisdom as focusing on the human effort to create many different forms of good lives. Although the approach is Aristotelian, the author concentrates on formulating and defending a contemporary moral ideal. The importance of this ideal, he shows, lies in increasing our ability to cope with life's adversities by improving our judgment.

In chapters on moral imagination, self-knowledge, and moral depth, Kekes calls attention to aspects of our inner life that have been neglected because of our cultural inattention to moral wisdom. He discusses these inner processes through the tragedies of Sophocles, which can inspire us with their enduring moral significance and help us to understand the importance of moral wisdom to living a good life.

This timely reader in moral philosophy addresses a controversy that strongly affected recent European reflections on the relevance of ethics for theories of democratic institutions and democratic legitimacy. The debate centers around the idea of a communicative ethics as articulated by J�rgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel, and it is representative both of recent attempts to bridge the gap between Continental and Anglo-American philosophy and of the turn to language that has characterized much of recent philosophy.The Communicative Ethics Controversy illustrates philosophical dialogue in action, moving from theses to counterarguments to rejoinders. Theoretical statements by Habermas, Apel, and two of their leading students, Dietrich B�hler and Robert Alexy, are followed by a series of five arguments by their leading critics, who represent viewpoints ranging from Kantian idealism to Wittgensteinian ordinary-language theory. Fred Dallmayr's introduction and Seyla Benhabib's incisive conclusion place the debate in perspective, bringing it up to date and relating it to the Anglo-American context.Seyla Benhabib is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Fred Dallmayr is Packey Dee Professor of Government at the University of Notre Dame.Contributors: Robert Alexy. Karl-Otto Apel. Seyla Benhabib. Dietrich Bohler. Jurgen Habermas. Otfried Hoffe. KarlHeinz Ilting. Hermann Lubbe. Herbert Schnadelbach. Albrecht Wellmer.

Politics is often characterized as the "art of compromise"—the implication being that compromise is desirable and that insight, imagination, discipline, and skill are all necessary for a satisfactory and successful compromise. Compromise in ethics, however, is quite another matter: there, it is usually regarded as a sign of weakness or lack of integrity. From Socrates and Sir Thomas More to Gandhi, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Martin Luther King, Jr., we revere these men and women not only for the nature of their convictions but also for their unwavering refusal to compromise.

Does this point to an important difference between politics and ethics? Martin Benjamin here explores, in the first book-length treatment, the surprisingly rich and complex notion of compromise and integrity in ethics and politics. With wide-ranging examples drawn from Tolstoy to Ralph Nader and from a variety of medical and bioethical cases Benjamin presents in a clear, straightforward fashion an examination of the interplay between compromise and integrity.

In the process, Benjamin tackles tough questions—the relationship between practical and theoretical ethics, what compromise means for ethical theory, how moral judgments affect compromise, and whether it is possible to compromise without being compromised. In the final chapter Benjamin explores the possibility of political compromise in a matter of great ethical significance—abortion.

Using the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy as an anchoring point, Jacques Derrida in this book conducts a profound review of the philosophy of the sense of touch, from Plato and Aristotle to Jean-Luc Nancy, whose ground-breaking book Corpus he discusses in detail. Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, Didier Franck, Martin Heidegger, Francoise Dastur, and Jean-Louis Chrétien are discussed, as are René Descartes, Diderot, Maine de Biran, Félix Ravaisson, Immanuel Kant, Sigmund Freud, and others. The scope of Derrida's deliberations makes this book a virtual encyclopedia of the philosophy of touch (and the body).

Journalistieke analyse van de betekenis van het pausschap van Johannes Paulus II (1920-2005; paus sedert 1978).