Metaphysics category: 2011 books

Another study in metaphysics, in regards to the wild deer. What is real, anyway?

On April 6, 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. Einstein considered Bergson's theory of time to be a soft, psychological notion, irreconcilable with the quantitative realities of physics. Bergson, who gained fame as a philosopher by arguing that time...

It seems quite natural to explain the activities of human and non-human animals by referring to their special faculties. Thus, we say that dogs can smell things in their environment because they have perceptual faculties, or that human beings can think because they have rational faculties. But what...

The Limits of Free Will presents influential articles by Paul Russell concerning free will and moral responsibility. The problems arising in this field of philosophy, which are deeply rooted in the history of the subject, are also intimately related to a wide range of other fields, such as law and...

The Problems of Philosophy (1912) is one of Bertrand Russell's attempts to create a brief and accessible guide to the problems of philosophy. Focusing on problems he believes will provoke positive and constructive discussion, Russell concentrates on knowledge rather than metaphysics.Russell guides...

J.T. Ismael's monograph is an ambitious contribution to metaphysics and the philosophy of language and mind. She tackles a philosophical question whose origin goes back to Descartes: What am I? The self is not a mere thing among things--but if so, what is it, and what is its relationship to the world?...

Dan Zahavi offers an in-depth and up-to-date analysis of central and contested aspects of the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. What is ultimately at stake in Husserl's phenomenological analyses? Are they primarily to be understood as investigations of consciousness or are...

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who is considered the central figure of modern philosophy. Kant argued that the human mind creates the structure of human experience, that reason is the source of morality, that aesthetics arises from a faculty of disinterested judgment, that space and time are...

The Nobel Peace Prize–winning doctor, theologian, and missionary explores the essence of faith in this masterful early work on Kantian metaphysics. Famous for his medical missionary work in what is now the West African country of Gabon, Albert Schweitzer was an accomplished theologian, philosopher,...

The Subject of Experience is about the self, the person. It takes the form of a series of essays which draw on literature and psychology as well as philosophy. Galen Strawson discusses the phenomenology or experience of having or being a self (What is the character of self-experience?) and the fundamental...

This clearly explained layman's introduction to quantum physics is an accessible excursion into metaphysics and the meaning of reality. Herbert exposes the quantum world and the scientific and philosophical controversy about its interpretation.

This is a collection of published and unpublished essays by distinguished philosopher Michael E. Bratman of Stanford University. They revolve around his influential theory, know as the "planning theory of intention and agency." Bratman's primary concern is with what he calls "strong"...

What role do fables play in Cartesian method and psychology? By looking at Descartes’ use of fables, James Griffith suggests there is a fabular logic that runs to the heart of Descartes’ philosophy. First focusing on The World and the Discourse on Method, this volume shows that by writing in fable...

This Pathway of Non-duality (Advaitavada) provides an answer to the apparently rational doubts and contradictions that are expressed both in the realm of philosophy and in the realm of science, which focuses nowdays on discovering a constant or law which will serve as the foundation for every branch...