Synopses & Reviews
Where does philosophy, the oldest academic subject, stand at the beginning of the new millennium? This remarkable volume brings together leading figures from most major branches of the discipline to offer answers.
What remains of the "linguistic turn" in twentieth-century philosophy? How should moral philosophy respond to and incorporate developments in empirical psychology? Where might Continental and Anglophone feminist theory profitably interact? How has our understanding of ancient philosophy been affected by the emergence of analytic philosophy? Where does the mind-body problem stand today? What role must value judgments play in science? Do Marx, Nietzsche, or Freud matter in the 21st century?
These and many other questions at the cutting edge of the discipline are addressed by distinguished philosophers from Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States. They aim not only to stimulate philosophical debate, but to introduce those in cognate disciplines--biology, classics, economics, history, law, linguistics, literary studies, mathematics, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, among others--to what is happening in contemporary philosophy. In a substantial introduction, the editor gives an overview of the state of philosophy today and helps orient non-philosophers.
Review
"In putting together this collection, Brian Leiter showed the essential instincts of a good editor: find outstanding contributors and let them write on topics that engage them. Conversely, don't compromise on the quality of the pieces for the sake of the editorial architectonic. The result is a volume in which every paper is an excellent treatment of an important and interesting topic...Leiter's goal was to show the reader what philosophy is today, and what it ought to be tomorrow, a project that calls for covering the major areas of current philosophical inquiry and representing the main ways of approaching these areas. It is a further tribute to Leiter's editorial abilities that the volume goes a considerable ways to meeting these goals...[a] remarkable achievement...a very useful and highly stimulating account of what philosophy is and where it is going."--Gary Gutting, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Synopsis
A stellar selection of the world's most eminent philosophers give a picture of the current state of their subject, where it is going, and where it ought to be steered. Each offers a penetrating analysis of his or her particular specialism, building a volume that offers a vision of the future of all major branches of the discipline. It will make provocative reading not just for philosophers themselves, but for anyone intrigued by the question of what philosophy has left to do.
About the Author
Brian Leiter holds the Joseph D. Jamail Centennial Chair in Law and Philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin.
Table of Contents
' Introduction, Brian Leiter, University of Texas, Austin
1. Ancient Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century, Julia Annas, University of Arizona
2. Philosophy and History in the History of Modern Philosophy, Don Garrett, New York University
3. The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, Brian Leiter, University of Texas, Austin
4. Past the Linguistic Turn?, Timothy Williamson, Oxford University
5. The Mind-Body Problem at Century\'s Turn, Jaegwon Kim, Brown University
6. The Representational Character of Experience, David J. Chalmers, Australian National University
7. The Need for Social Epistemology, Alvin I. Goldman, Rutgers University
8. The Ends of the Sciences, Philip Kitcher, Columbia University
9. From Causation to Explanation and Back, Nancy Cartwright, London School of Economics
10. Normative Ethics: Back to the Future, Thomas Hurka, University of Toronto
11. Toward an Ethics that Inhabits the World, Peter Railton, University of Michigan
12. Projection and Objectification, Rae Langton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
13. Existentialism, Quietism, and the Role of Philosophy, Philip Pettit, Princeton University
'