What is the state for?

The first English translation and analysis of a 1793 text by Karl von Dalberg (1744–1817) in defence of enlightened absolutism against Kantian criticisms.

Power of sage

The book constructs a new model for attaining power, challenging the traditional Machiavellian approach to construct power.

Senses of upheaval

Spanning a decade of Michael Marder’s contributions as a public intellectual, Senses of Upheaval documents a period of exceptional global turmoil in intellectual, cultural, technological and political spheres.

Karl polanyi and twenty-first-century capitalism

This book extends the boundaries of our understanding of Karl Polanyi's life and work. The contributors consider the links between Polanyi's ideas and income inequality, world systems theory, and comparative political economy.

The good life and the good state

There is no good human life outside of a state, and the good state enables us to live well together – so says Constitutivism, the theory developed in this book. Reinvigorating Aristotelian ideas, the author asks in what sense citizens of modern, populous and pluralistic societies share a common g...

The dilemma of authority

This book analyses the so-called moral problem of authority, which is the challenge of reconciling legitimate authority (the right to rule) with the demands of freedom and rationality. It offers a critique of authority sceptics, both anarchist and non-anarchist, who insist that authority can neve...

Prometheus and gaia

Prometheus and Gaia explores two currents in contemporary politics: a Futurism which sees boundless technology as a salvific force and an Eco-Pessimism which sees human innovation as inherently destructive. While apparent opposites, these two currents share in common a rejection of Enlightenment ...

Private property and the fear of social chaos

What do people imagine it means to live in a world where private property is dominant and what are their fears about living in a future world where it has disappeared? This book studies the recurring nightmare that various lumpen mobs could demolish private property. That threatened social chaos...

Political theology as critical theory

This book maps a new path to understanding subjectivity and history in response to the challenges faced by modern political thinking, including the shortcomings of liberal individualism in accounting for our lives together. It describes a critical theory derived from political theology and focuse...

Experimental dining

Considers four of the world’s leading creative restaurants as experimental performance practice. Using ideas from performance studies, cultural studies, philosophy and economics, the book argues that technoemotional restaurants can be understood as both a commodified experience and an artistic an...

Avicenna's "de anima" in the latin west

Early buddhism as philosophy of existence

This book makes the connection between early Buddhism and nature. Early Buddhism was a system of thinking which applied the universal laws of nature to human beings. It was a comprehensive worldview. But after the first 400 to 500 years, it was mostly lost.

Reclaiming the wicked son

This book takes the ideas of six well-known secular Jewish philosophers and views them through the lens of Jewish thought, thereby understanding their writings as part of the Jewish intellectual tradition.

The archaeology of war

The 20th century holds many titles that emphasise the extraordinary. It was a century of totalitarianism, but also one of betrayal, an age of extremes and the incomprehensible. Betrayed, that is, at the mercy of unrestrained violence, were not only the people themselves but also, as it were, the ...

Philosophical embarrassment

This book explores moments of philosophical embarrassment, focusing on Hume and Wittgenstein, who recognized how their critiques challenged the very foundations of philosophy. It examines how figures like the Vienna Circle and Quine redefined philosophy’s aims and how the later Wittgenstein warne...

Wittgenstein and artificial intelligence, volume i

Wittgenstein and AI (Volume I): Mind and Language. This is the first of two edited collections, exploring Wittgensteinian themes in AI. The issues covered by the various chapters of this volume range over a number of topics, with a specific focus on mind and language.

The seriality of the one

The Seriality of the One investigates the metaphysical, ontological, and existential significance of the series in dialogue with a constellation of modern and premodern authors, giving special attention to the way seriality mediates and measures the relation between the individual and the univers...

Logisch-philosophische abhandlung: die hundertjahrsausgabe

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, i...

Wittgenstein, human beings and conversation

These papers develop, in a critical spirit, themes in Wittgenstein’s treatment of mind and language. The approach is distinctive in giving central place to the individual’s relations with others in a way that involves detailed attention to the human bodily form and to conversation, and a signific...

Tractatus logico-philosophicus

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, i...

Montesquieu's 'the spirit of the laws'

The Spirit of the Laws is the canonical text of modern republicanism and the English translation – always deficient heretofore – is critical to an appreciation of those deliberations that led to adoption of the Constitution of the United States. The present update recovers the sense of the origin...

Wittgenstein and popular culture

This volume makes an incisive contribution to the field of philosophy of culture in outlining the potential of Wittgenstein’s philosophy for the study of popular culture, focusing on concrete examples: from detective fiction and comics, to TV series and football fandom.

Wittgenstein’s critique of russell’s multiple relation theory of judgement

This book sets out to adjudicate the scholarly controversy surrounding Wittgenstein’s May–June 1913 critique of Russell’s multiple-relation theory of judgement. It also aims to familiarize readers with the historical events, textual evidence, letters, working notes and diagrams which are crucial ...

Wittgenstein’s remarks on colour

The book is a first detailed discussion of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Colour, a compilation of writings on the subject from the last fifteen months of his life. The origin and significance of the remarks are explained along with a remark-by-remark guide to what Wittgenstein says. In additio...

Insight and illusion

Peter Hacker’s Insight and Illusion is a thoroughly comprehensive examination of the evolution of Wittgenstein’s thought from the Tractatus to his later ‘mature’ phase. This third edition is a reprint of the revised and corrected 1989 edition, with a new foreword by Constantine Sandis.

A beginner's guide to the later philosophy of wittgenstein

In this Beginner’s Guide, Peter Hacker introduces the later philosophy of Wittgenstein in a lively and engaging combination of lectures and dialogues that presupposes no philosophical knowledge. He examines such topics as the nature of language and linguistic meaning, the analysis of necessity an...

Normativity, meaning and philosophy: essays on wittgenstein

This is a collection of essays on Wittgenstein originally published between 1996 and 2019, with a new introduction. The essays defend and develop a central Wittgensteinian idea: ‘grammatical rules’ for the use of expressions hold the key to understanding linguistic meaning, as well as its connect...

Stratagem of the corpse

Stratagem of the Corpse is a philosophical and literary exposition of death not so much as seen by Baudrillard but Baudrillard as seen by death.

The marriage of philology and scepticism: uncertainty and conjecture in early modern scholarship and thought

This volume addresses the question of uncertainty in early modern scholarship and thought. The eight papers confront an array of problems, texts, scholars and intellectual contexts, from introductory assessments of the nature of Greek scepticism, particularly in its relation to ancient grammar an...