The Embodied Philosopher

Download The Embodied Philosopher PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030799646
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (37 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Embodied Philosopher by : Konrad Werner

Download or read book The Embodied Philosopher written by Konrad Werner and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-10-30 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is the first formulation of a meta-philosophical scheme rooted in the embodied cognition paradigm. The latter views subjects capable of cognition and experience as living, embodied creatures coupled with their environments. On the other hand, the emergence of experimental philosophy has given rise to a new context in which philosophers have begun to search for a more thorough definition of philosophical competence. The time is ripe for these two trends to join their efforts. Therefore, the book discusses what it means for a human being thought of as a living subject to pursue philosophy. In this context, in contrast to the existing literature, philosophical competence must not be conflated with competence in philosophy. The former is a skill or attitude. The book refers to this peculiar attitude as the recognition of one’s epistemic position.

The Body and Embodiment

Download The Body and Embodiment PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1786609762
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (866 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Body and Embodiment by : Frank Chouraqui

Download or read book The Body and Embodiment written by Frank Chouraqui and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-04-07 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfect for use at advanced undergraduate and graduate level, this is the first text to offer students a unified narrative regarding the place of the body in Western thinking. The book investigates the ways in which the fact of human embodiment makes the notion of ambiguity central to all major areas of philosophy. The body is both active and passive, powerful and vulnerable, and it provides both access through perception and limitation through localisation. As such, it fundamentally informs ontological, political, ethical and epistemological issues. The book takes as its starting point the devaluation of the body by philosophers from Plato to Descartes and then focuses on several dimensions of the body as investigated by post-Kantian philosophy through a discussion of the intentional body, embodied cognition and the politicization of the body. The book engages with both the ‘Continental’ and ‘Anglo-American’ philosophical traditions and includes a broad range of sources and texts. The unified approach and clear writing make this lively text accessible to those working in other disciplines such as Anthropology, Cultural Studies and Gender Studies.

Philosophy In The Flesh

Download Philosophy In The Flesh PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 9780465056743
Total Pages : 644 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (567 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Philosophy In The Flesh by : George Lakoff

Download or read book Philosophy In The Flesh written by George Lakoff and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 1999-10-08 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are human beings like? How is knowledge possible? What is truth? Where do moral values come from? Questions like these have stood at the center of Western philosophy for centuries. In addressing them, philosophers have made certain fundamental assumptions-that we can know our own minds by introspection, that most of our thinking about the world is literal, and that reason is disembodied and universal-that are now called into question by well-established results of cognitive science. It has been shown empirically that:Most thought is unconscious. We have no direct conscious access to the mechanisms of thought and language. Our ideas go by too quickly and at too deep a level for us to observe them in any simple way.Abstract concepts are mostly metaphorical. Much of the subject matter of philosopy, such as the nature of time, morality, causation, the mind, and the self, relies heavily on basic metaphors derived from bodily experience. What is literal in our reasoning about such concepts is minimal and conceptually impoverished. All the richness comes from metaphor. For instance, we have two mutually incompatible metaphors for time, both of which represent it as movement through space: in one it is a flow past us and in the other a spatial dimension we move along.Mind is embodied. Thought requires a body-not in the trivial sense that you need a physical brain to think with, but in the profound sense that the very structure of our thoughts comes from the nature of the body. Nearly all of our unconscious metaphors are based on common bodily experiences.Most of the central themes of the Western philosophical tradition are called into question by these findings. The Cartesian person, with a mind wholly separate from the body, does not exist. The Kantian person, capable of moral action according to the dictates of a universal reason, does not exist. The phenomenological person, capable of knowing his or her mind entirely through introspection alone, does not exist. The utilitarian person, the Chomskian person, the poststructuralist person, the computational person, and the person defined by analytic philosopy all do not exist.Then what does?Lakoff and Johnson show that a philosopy responsible to the science of mind offers radically new and detailed understandings of what a person is. After first describing the philosophical stance that must follow from taking cognitive science seriously, they re-examine the basic concepts of the mind, time, causation, morality, and the self: then they rethink a host of philosophical traditions, from the classical Greeks through Kantian morality through modern analytic philosopy. They reveal the metaphorical structure underlying each mode of thought and show how the metaphysics of each theory flows from its metaphors. Finally, they take on two major issues of twentieth-century philosopy: how we conceive rationality, and how we conceive language.

Embodied Philosophy in Dance

Download Embodied Philosophy in Dance PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137601868
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (376 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Embodied Philosophy in Dance by : Einav Katan-Schmid

Download or read book Embodied Philosophy in Dance written by Einav Katan-Schmid and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-18 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Representing the first comprehensive analysis of Gaga and Ohad Naharin's aesthetic approach, this book follows the sensual and mental emphases of the movement research practiced by dancers of the Batsheva Dance Company. Considering the body as a means of expression, Embodied Philosophy in Dance deciphers forms of meaning in dance as a medium for perception and realization within the body. In doing so, the book addresses embodied philosophies of mind, hermeneutics, pragmatism, and social theories in order to illuminate the perceptual experience of dancing. It also reveals the interconnections between physical and mental processes of reasoning and explores the nature of physical intelligence.

Birth, Death, and Femininity

Download Birth, Death, and Femininity PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253222370
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (532 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Birth, Death, and Femininity by : Sara Heinämaa

Download or read book Birth, Death, and Femininity written by Sara Heinämaa and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-25 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues surrounding birth and death have been fundamental for Western philosophy as well as for individual existence. The contributors to this volume unravel the gendered aspects of the classical philosophical discourses on death, bringing in discussions about birth, creativity, and the entire chain of human activity. By linking their work to major thinkers such as Heidegger, Nietzsche, Beauvoir, and Arendt, and to major philosophical currents such as ancient philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, and social and political philosophy, they challenge prevailing feminist articulations of birth and death. These philosophical reflections add an important sexual dimension to current thinking on identity, temporality, and community.

Embodiment

Download Embodiment PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190490462
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (94 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Embodiment by : Justin E.H. Smith

Download or read book Embodiment written by Justin E.H. Smith and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-02 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embodiment--defined as having, being in, or being associated with a body--is a feature of the existence of many entities, perhaps even of all entities. Why entities should find themselves in this condition is the central concern of the present volume. The problem includes, but also goes beyond, the philosophical problem of body: that is, what the essence of a body is, and how, if at all, it differs from matter. On some understandings there may exist bodies, such as stones or asteroids, that are not the bodies of any particular subjects. To speak of embodiment by contrast is always to speak of a subject that variously inhabits, or captains, or is coextensive with, or even is imprisoned within, a body. The subject may in the end be identical to, or an emergent product of, the body. That is, a materialist account of embodied subjects may be the correct one. But insofar as there is a philosophical problem of embodiment, the identity of the embodied subject with the body stands in need of an argument and cannot simply be assumed. The reasons, nature, and consequences of the embodiment of subjects as conceived in the long history of philosophy in Europe as well as in the broader Mediterranean region and in South and East Asia, with forays into religion, art, medicine, and other domains of culture, form the focus of these essays. More precisely, the contributors to this volume shine light on a number of questions that have driven reflection on embodiment throughout the history of philosophy. What is the historical and conceptual relationship between the idea of embodiment and the idea of subjecthood? Am I who I am principally in virtue of the fact that I have the body I have? Relatedly, what is the relationship of embodiment to being and to individuality? Is embodiment a necessary condition of being? Of being an individual? What are the theological dimensions of embodiment? To what extent has the concept of embodiment been deployed in the history of philosophy to contrast the created world with the state of existence enjoyed by God? What are the normative dimensions of theories of embodiment? To what extent is the problem of embodiment a distinctly western preoccupation? Is it the result of a particular local and contingent history, or does it impose itself as a universal problem, wherever and whenever human beings begin to reflect on the conditions of their existence? Ultimately, to what extent can natural science help us to resolve philosophical questions about embodiment, many of which are vastly older than the particular scientific research programs we now believe to hold the greatest promise for revealing to us the bodily basis, or the ultimate physical causes, of who we really are?

The Embodied Mind, revised edition

Download The Embodied Mind, revised edition PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026252936X
Total Pages : 390 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Embodied Mind, revised edition by : Francisco J. Varela

Download or read book The Embodied Mind, revised edition written by Francisco J. Varela and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-01-13 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of a classic work that originated the “embodied cognition” movement and was one of the first to link science and Buddhist practices. This classic book, first published in 1991, was one of the first to propose the “embodied cognition” approach in cognitive science. It pioneered the connections between phenomenology and science and between Buddhist practices and science—claims that have since become highly influential. Through this cross-fertilization of disparate fields of study, The Embodied Mind introduced a new form of cognitive science called “enaction,” in which both the environment and first person experience are aspects of embodiment. However, enactive embodiment is not the grasping of an independent, outside world by a brain, a mind, or a self; rather it is the bringing forth of an interdependent world in and through embodied action. Although enacted cognition lacks an absolute foundation, the book shows how that does not lead to either experiential or philosophical nihilism. Above all, the book's arguments were powered by the conviction that the sciences of mind must encompass lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience. This revised edition includes substantive introductions by Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch that clarify central arguments of the work and discuss and evaluate subsequent research that has expanded on the themes of the book, including the renewed theoretical and practical interest in Buddhism and mindfulness. A preface by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, contextualizes the book and describes its influence on his life and work.

Phenomenology and Embodiment

Download Phenomenology and Embodiment PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
ISBN 13 : 0810167484
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (11 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Phenomenology and Embodiment by : Joona Taipale

Download or read book Phenomenology and Embodiment written by Joona Taipale and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the dawn of the modern era, philosophers reinterpreted their subject as the study of consciousness, pushing the body to the margins of philosophy. With the arrival of Husserlian thought in the late nineteenth century, the body was once again understood to be part of the transcendental field. And yet, despite the enormous influence of Husserl’s phenomenology, the role of "embodiment" in the broader philosophical landscape remains largely unresolved. In his ambitious debut book, Phenomenology and Embodiment, Joona Taipale tackles the Husserlian concept—also engaging the thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Michel Henry—with a comprehensive and systematic phenomenological investigation into the role of embodiment in the constitution of self-awareness, intersubjectivity, and objective reality. In doing so, he contributes a detailed clarification of the fundamental constitutive role of embodiment in the basic relations of subjectivity.

What Is Philosophy?

Download What Is Philosophy? PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780992373405
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (734 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis What Is Philosophy? by : Jere Surber

Download or read book What Is Philosophy? written by Jere Surber and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The enterprise of philosophy has been under sustained attack throughout the 20th century, not just by the sciences and allied cultural forces but within the traditions of analytic and Continental thought themselves. This work attempts to diagnose the roots of these assaults on the enterprise of philosophy and responds to them by developing a new constructive and systematic 'image of philosophy.' This novel conception of philosophy aims to re-establish philosophy's 'field' as a humanly indispensable enterprise autonomous from, but related to, other such areas as religion, science, and art. Beginning with Kant's suppressed notion of 'analytic a posteriori judgments, ' and drawing widely upon both the ancient and modern traditions as well as such contemporary thinkers as Deleuze, Badiou, and Meillassoux, it proposes a new 'mapping' of the field of philosophy in terms of three conditions necessary for the very existence of philosophy as an activity, body of texts, and thought-complexes expressed in them: embodiment, signification, and ideality. In so doing, it offers a view that is realist, finitist, constructivist, and pluralistic, but that also accords a central role to logical reasoning and truth claims. In the end, it seeks to discover the common roots of the analytic and Continental traditions, to move beyond the impasses and exhaustion of 'postmodernisms, ' and to provide a framework for addressing the newly emergent philosophical issues of the 21st century.

Embodiment, Relation, Community

Download Embodiment, Relation, Community PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271084499
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Embodiment, Relation, Community by : Garnet C. Butchart

Download or read book Embodiment, Relation, Community written by Garnet C. Butchart and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2019-05-31 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, Garnet C. Butchart shows how human communication can be understood as embodied relations and not merely as a mechanical process of transmission. Expanding on contemporary philosophies of speech and language, self and other, and community and immunity, this book challenges many common assumptions, constructs, and problems of communication theory while offering compelling new resources for future study. Human communication has long been characterized as a problem of transmitting information, or the “outward” sharing of “inner thought” through mediated channels of exchange. Butchart questions that model and the various theories to which it gives rise. Drawing from the work of Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Jacques Lacan—thinkers who, along with Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault, have critiqued the modern notion of a rational subject—Butchart shows that the subject is shaped by language rather than preformed, and that humans embody, and not just use, the signs and contexts of interaction that form what he calls a “communication community.” Accessibly written and engagingly researched, Embodiment, Relation, Community is relevant for researchers and advanced students of communication, cultural studies, translation, and rhetorical studies, especially those who work with a humanistic or interpretive paradigm.

The Problems of Philosophy

Download The Problems of Philosophy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cosimo, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1605200255
Total Pages : 130 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (52 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Problems of Philosophy by : Bertrand Russell

Download or read book The Problems of Philosophy written by Bertrand Russell and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of his great works, and a must-read for any student of philosophy, The Problems of Philosophy was written in 1912 as an introduction to Russell's thought. As an empiricist, Russell starts at the beginning with this question: Is there any knowledge in the world that is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it? This, according to Russell, is where the work of philosophy begins. He covers topics such as reality, the nature of matter, inductive reasoning, truth, and the limits of philosophical knowledge. As one of the greatest minds in Western philosophy, Russell's thoughts are profoundly informative and provocative and suitable for anyone wishing to expand his mind. British philosopher and mathematician BERTRAND ARTHUR WILLIAM RUSSELL (1872-1970) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. Among his many works are Why I Am Not a Christian (1927), Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), and My Philosophical Development (1959).

Where the Action Is

Download Where the Action Is PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262260611
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (622 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Where the Action Is by : Paul Dourish

Download or read book Where the Action Is written by Paul Dourish and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-08-20 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Computer science as an engineering discipline has been spectacularly successful. Yet it is also a philosophical enterprise in the way it represents the world and creates and manipulates models of reality, people, and action. In this book, Paul Dourish addresses the philosophical bases of human-computer interaction. He looks at how what he calls "embodied interaction"—an approach to interacting with software systems that emphasizes skilled, engaged practice rather than disembodied rationality—reflects the phenomenological approaches of Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and other twentieth-century philosophers. The phenomenological tradition emphasizes the primacy of natural practice over abstract cognition in everyday activity. Dourish shows how this perspective can shed light on the foundational underpinnings of current research on embodied interaction. He looks in particular at how tangible and social approaches to interaction are related, how they can be used to analyze and understand embodied interaction, and how they could affect the design of future interactive systems.

Embodied Mind, Meaning, and Reason

Download Embodied Mind, Meaning, and Reason PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022650039X
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Embodied Mind, Meaning, and Reason by : Mark Johnson

Download or read book Embodied Mind, Meaning, and Reason written by Mark Johnson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-11-20 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark Johnson is one of the great thinkers of our time on how the body shapes the mind. This book brings together a selection of essays from the past two decades that build a powerful argument that any scientifically and philosophically satisfactory view of mind and thought must ultimately explain how bodily perception and action give rise to cognition, meaning, language, action, and values. A brief account of Johnson’s own intellectual journey, through which we track some of the most important discoveries in the field over the past forty years, sets the stage. Subsequent chapters set out Johnson’s important role in embodied cognition theory, including his cofounding (with George Lakoff) of conceptual metaphor theory and, later, their theory of bodily structures and processes that underlie all meaning, conceptualization, and reasoning. A detailed account of how meaning arises from our physical engagement with our environments provides the basis for a nondualistic, nonreductive view of mind that he sees as most congruous with the latest cognitive science. A concluding section explores the implications of our embodiment for our understanding of knowledge, reason, and truth. The resulting book will be essential for all philosophers dealing with mind, thought, and language.

Supersizing the Mind

Download Supersizing the Mind PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780199831043
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (31 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Supersizing the Mind by : Andy Clark

Download or read book Supersizing the Mind written by Andy Clark and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-31 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When historian Charles Weiner found pages of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman's notes, he saw it as a "record" of Feynman's work. Feynman himself, however, insisted that the notes were not a record but the work itself. In Supersizing the Mind, Andy Clark argues that our thinking doesn't happen only in our heads but that "certain forms of human cognizing include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward and feed-around loops: loops that promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body and world." The pen and paper of Feynman's thought are just such feedback loops, physical machinery that shape the flow of thought and enlarge the boundaries of mind. Drawing upon recent work in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, human-computer systems, and beyond, Supersizing the Mind offers both a tour of the emerging cognitive landscape and a sustained argument in favor of a conception of mind that is extended rather than "brain-bound." The importance of this new perspective is profound. If our minds themselves can include aspects of our social and physical environments, then the kinds of social and physical environments we create can reconfigure our minds and our capacity for thought and reason.

Meaning and Embodiment

Download Meaning and Embodiment PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 1438475578
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Meaning and Embodiment by : Nicholas Mowad

Download or read book Meaning and Embodiment written by Nicholas Mowad and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines Hegel’s insights regarding the complexity and significance of embodiment in human life, identity, and experience. Meaning and Embodiment provides a detailed study of Hegel’s anthropology to examine the place of corporeity or embodiment in human life, identity, and experience. In Hegel’s view, to be human means in part to produce one’s own spiritual embodiment in culture and habits. Whereas for animals nature only has meaning relative to biological drives, humans experience meaning in a way that transcends these limits, and which allows for aesthetic appreciation of beauty and sublimity, nihilistic feelings of meaninglessness, and the complex and different systems of symbolic speech and action characterizing language and culture. By elucidating the different forms of embodiment, Nicholas Mowad shows how for Hegel we are embodied in several different ways at once: as extended, subject to physical-chemical forces, living, and human. Many difficult problems in philosophy and everyday experience come down to using the right concept of embodiment. Mowad traces Hegel’s account through the growth and development of the body, gender and racial difference, cycles of sleep and waking, and sensibility and mental illness. “This book offers a lucid explanation of very difficult Hegelian concepts in clear language, along with a passionate, searing, provocative, and intelligent foray into questions of race and gender.” — Lydia Moland, Colby College

Handbook of Embodied Psychology

Download Handbook of Embodied Psychology PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030784711
Total Pages : 630 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (37 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Handbook of Embodied Psychology by : Michael D. Robinson

Download or read book Handbook of Embodied Psychology written by Michael D. Robinson and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-10-31 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume seeks to integrate research and scholarship on the topic of embodiment, with the idea being that thinking and feeling are often grounded in more concrete representations related to perception and action. The book centers on psychological approaches to embodiment and includes chapters speaking to development as well as clinical issues, though a larger number focus on topics related to cognition and neuroscience as well as social and personality psychology. These topical chapters are linked to theory-based chapters centered on interoception, grounded cognition, conceptual metaphor, and the extended mind thesis. Further, a concluding section speaks to critical issues such as replication concerns, alternative interpretations, and future directions. The final result is a carefully conceived product that is a comprehensive and well-integrated volume on the psychology of embodiment. The primary audience for this book is academic psychologists from many different areas of psychology (e.g., social, developmental, cognitive, clinical). The secondary audience consists of disciplines in which ideas related to embodied cognition figure prominently, such as counseling, education, biology, and philosophy.

The Embodiment of Reason

Download The Embodiment of Reason PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226752174
Total Pages : 500 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (521 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Embodiment of Reason by : Susan Meld Shell

Download or read book The Embodiment of Reason written by Susan Meld Shell and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996-06-15 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Commentators on the work of Immanuel Kant have long held that his later "critical" writings are a radical rejection of his earlier, less celebrated efforts. In this pathbreaking book, Susan Shell demonstrates not only the developmental unity of Kant's individual writings, but also the unity of his work and life experience. Shell argues that the central animating issues of Kant's lifework concerned the perplexing relation of spirit to body. Through an exacting analysis of individual writings, Shell maps the philosophical contours of Kant's early intellectual struggles and their relation to his more mature thought. The paradox of mind in matter and the tensions it generates—between freedom and determinacy, independence and community, ideal and real—are shown to inform the whole of his work. Shell's fresh, penetrating analysis of the precritical works will surely catapult them to new prominence in Kant studies. Shell's critique goes further to consider the context of contemporary intellectual life. She explores the fascinating realm of Kant's sexual and medical idiosyncracies, linking them to the primary concerns of his critical philosophy. She develops a sure-to-be controversial treatment of the connection between Kant's philosophy and his chronic hypochondria, and illuminates previously unforeseen connections in a remarkable convergence of life and thought, with important theoretical and practical implications for modern times.