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John Gach Books, Inc. 10514 Marriottsville Road (Rear Building) PO Box 267 Randallstown, Maryland 21133 |
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John Gach Books, Inc. 10514 Marriottsville Road (Rear Building) PO Box 267 Randallstown, Maryland 21133 |
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14 papers including Alan Ryan's "The Nature of Human Nature in Hobbes and Rousseau"; Jeann-Marie Benoist's "Classicism Revisited: Human Nature and Structure in Lévi-Strauss and Chomsky"; Koestler's "The Limits of Ma and His Predicament"; David Bohm's "Human Nature as the Product of our Mental Models"; Raymond Williams's "Social Darwinism"; John Maynard Smith's "Can We Change Human Nature? The Evidence of Genetics"; Michael Chance's "The Dimensions of Our Social Behavior"; Liam Hudson's "The Limits of Human Intelligence"; Max Clowes's "Man the Creative Machine: A Perspective from Artificial Intelligence Research"; Terry Winograd's "The Processes of Language Understanding."
Cobbe was a notable Victorian philanthropist, religious writer, feminist, and strident anti-vivisectionist—she was a founder of the National Anti-Vivisection Society in 1875, and in 1898 founded the British Association for the Abolition of Vivisection. The present volume reprints 6 essays on social issues that originally appeared in Fraser's Magazine, one from the Theological Review, and two essays printed for the first time. Includes "The Philosophy of the Poor-Laws" and "The Rights of Man and the Claims of Brutes."
PMM 295. One of the foundation texts for sociology and an influential text for the philosophy of science. Comte's law of three states "(first formulated in 1822) states that human thought, in its historical development, passes successively through three distinct phases: the theological (or fictional) state, the metaphysical (or abstract) state, and the positive (or scientific) state. In the theological state, man exlains the world around him in anthropomorphic terms, reducing natural processes to the whims of manlike gods and agencies. In the metaphysical state, deities are replaced by powers, potencies, forces, and other imperceptible causal agencies. The positive state repudiates both causal forces and gods and restricts itself to expressing precise, verifiable correlations between observable phenomena. While Comte believes that the theological and metaphysical states are based on a misconception of natural processes, he insists that they were essential preliminaries to the emergence of positive knowledge" [DSB: III: 375].
Comte's grand synthesis in which he emphasized the reformist aspects of his system much more than in the Cours de philosophie positive.
Facsimile reprint of the Georgetown 1817 edition.
Reidel's introduction is a detailed 72 page discussion. The principal text first appeared in 1910 in the Abhandlungen der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse and was reprinted in 1927 in the Gesammelte Schriften. Also includes Plan der Fortsetzung zum Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften (Entwürfe zur Kritik der historischen Vernunft); Die Abgrenzung der Geisteswissenschaften (Dritte Studie zur Grundlegeung der Geisteswissenschaften); and Zusätze zum Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt (Der logische Zusammenhang in den Geisteswissenschaften)—all three texts taken from the Gesammelte Schriften.
Duprat was professor of philosophy at the lycée de Rochefort.
Chapters on the art of dancing, of thinking, of writing, of religion, of morals.
Contains a long critique of Freud's philosophy.
David Smith, Bibliography of Helvetius E.1B, page 121 and his intricate discussion of the book's publication and suppression, pages 105-114. Also see his earlier "The Publication of Helvetius' De L'esprit (1758-9)," Yale French Studies 18:332-344. The great 18th century argument for environmentalism. Immediately banned, De l'esprit became an ideological causes celebres of the 18th century and greatly influenced Bentham's formulation of utilitarianism. Helvetius maintained along with Condillac that all forms of intellectual activity have their origin in sensation; in ethics he judged the good in terms of self-satisfaction, regarding self-interest as the sole motive for action.
- Tercier, the censor appointed by Malesherbes, directeur de la Librarie, OKed the book for publication, possibly without ever reading it, and the book was granted an approbation and privilège, allowing Helvetius to claim he had done all the law required. Printing must have been finished by late June, 1758, at which time Charles Alexandre Salley, a book-trade inspector, alerted Malesherbes to the book's anti-religious bent. Malesherbes immediately revoked its privilège and ordered Durand either to suspend or delay publication (the French "suspendre" can mean either). Only a handful of these first issue copies were released and Smith thinks it quite possible no copies were offered for sale (p. 111), in which case what he calls the first issue is really a first state with uncancelled sheets. A new censor was appointed, now known to have been abbé Jean-Jacques Barthélemy. He "cut surprisingly little, indeed only the most blatant attacks on the Church and its dogma, notably a long note in the first chapter showing that many saints and Church fathers had contested the spirituality of the soul." [Smith p. 112]. Helvetius then wrote harmless passages of the same length as those cut, with Barthélemy vetting the new material. The 2nd issue was finally put on sale on 27 July, 1758. In short order the Queen and Dauphin complained, not least because the work was printed by their official printer. Malesherbes promptly ordered the book withdrawn from sale and on 10 August cancelled its privilège. Helvetius was forced by the Queen to write a retraction in mid-August, and again by his mother in late August to write a much more abject disavowal of his work.
- Naturally all this notoriety only ensured that this was now a must-read book. "Publishers both inside and outside France were quick to bring out illicit editions" [Smith p. 113]. Even Durand, who probably printed the second quarto edition, also 1758, may have printed as well the 3-volume 12mo 1758 edition (Smith's E.3) with the Amsterdam imprint of Arkstée & Merkus, with whom Durand had a commercial relationship.
Clandestine re-issue of the text of the 1st edition with line 1 of page 5 reading 'mon ', preceded by the very rare suppressed first edition, only a few copies of which were printed and distributed to friends, and the censored 2nd edition. See D. W. Smith's "The Publication of Helvetius' De L'esprit (1758-9)", Yale French Studies 18: 332-344. Durand had had the foresight to hide the type for the first edition, which allowed him to produce this slightly altered clandestine edition.The great 18th century argument for environmentalism. Immediately banned, De l'esprit became an ideological causes celebres of the 18th century and greatly influenced Bentham's formulation of utilitarianism. Helvetius maintained along with Condillac that all forms of intellectual activity have their origin in sensation; in ethics he judged the good in terms of self-satisfaction, regarding self-interest as the sole motive for action.
Contends that universal resentment was the cause of the mid-twentieth century's barbarism and that the responsibility for it was shared by the whole of Western civilization.
One of the great Marxist-sociological books published by the Frankfurt School. Includes contributions by Horkheimer, Fromm, Marcuse, Landauer, Wittfogel, Schachtel, Kurt Goldstein, Marie Jahoda-Lazarsfeld, and others.Erich Fromm's socio-psychological essay in the theoretical first section (pages 77-135) is the origin of the concept of the authoritarian character, here termed "der autoritär-masochistische Charakter." In his important 1941 book, Escape From Freedom (originally published in English) Fromm adopted the term "authoritarian character" instead, because the psychoanalytic concept of the sadomasochistic character was tied too closely to perversion and neurosis. Horkheimer wrote the introductory essay and Marcuse the historical essay, both also in the theoretical section.
Contains papers by Kuznets on economics, Kluckhohn on cultural analysis, Nagel, Jakobson on language, and I. A. Richards' "How Does a Poem Know When It Is Finished?"
Contains selections from Comte, Tylor, Pareto, Spencer, Morgan, Freud, Marx Durkheim, etc.
Madge was professor of social science at the University of Birmingham. Contains chapters on Comte & Marx, and Pareto & Freud.
One of the most influential 18th century British contributions to social & economic thought, the first edition of which is very rare. Mandeville strongly favored free trade and the production of luxuries, but opposed educating the poor on the grounds that knowledge multiplies our desires without providing the means for fulfilling them. Adam Smith was much influenced by Mandeville.
Gallagher Maritain Bibliog. 1062.1 Originally published in English.
Argues, using French sources, that the understanding, values, and uses of memory changed toward the end of the 19th century.
Contains Kenneth Clark's "Television"; H. D. F. Kitto's "That Famous Greek 'Wholeness'"; Jaquetta Hawkes's "By Their Arts You Shall Know Them"; Peter Medawar's "The Philosophy of Karl Popper"; David Samuel's "Some Facts and Theories Regarding Research on the Brain"; Glynne Wickham's "Nature in a Mirror"; Ernst Gombrich's "Eperiment and Experience in the Arts."
PMM 197; Kress 5057. The great Enlightenment synthesis of 18th century thought about law, history, government, and individual rights in which Montesquieue formulated the philosophical substrucutre of democracy. Comte and Durkheim viewed Montesquieu as the most important precursor of sociology, while Ernst Cassirer and Franz Neumann saw him as the founder of ideal-type analysis, and Sir Frederick Pollock as the father of modern historical research and of a comparative theory of politics and law based on observation of actual systems.
Facsimile reprint of the London 1817 third edition.
Contains Willard F. Libby's "Man's Place in the Physical Universe"; George Wald's "Determinacy, Individuality, and the Problem of Free Will"; Derek J. de Solla Price's "The Science of Science"; Roger W. Sperry's "Mind, Brain, and Humanist Values"; Clifford Geertz's "THe Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man"; James M. Redfield's "The Sense of Crisis."
Contains a brief foreword by Polanyi, preface & introduction by Schwartz, and 9 papers by Polanyi published in journals from 1945 to 1965.
An unaltered reprint of the first edition with an added 20 page new foreword.
Chapters on amitié, illusions, amour, temps, habitude, folie, malheur, ennui, peur, etc.
The double volume issue of one of the great American cooperative intellectual achievements.
Shoham was director of the Criminology Institute of the Law Faculty in the University of Tel Aviv.
Contains excellent bibliographies of primary & secondary sources.
An important book in the canon of Social Darwinism.
The first part of The Principles of Ethics, the final volumes of his grand Synthetic Philosophy, on which Spencer worked for the greater part of his life. As noted in the preface, The Data of Ethics appeared out of order, before the second and third volumes of the Principles of Sociology. "Spencer considered the Synthetic Philosophy's final two volumes, the Principles of Ethics, to be the crowning achievement of his work. In them he returned to many of the themes and ideas he had first explored in the [1851] Social Statics, although now mediated through a more explicitly evolutionary perspective. … The ethical theory that emerged from these speculations was a form of rule utilitarianism …" [Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophy vol. 2:1056].
Important texts in the canon of social darwinism. Respectively parts 1 and 4 of The Principles of Ethics.
Originally published as a two-part article in the April and May 1886 issues of The Nineteenth Century. Spencer's last major scientific essay, and, while hardly his final word on evolution, his last major argument for the inheritance of acquired characteristics."In 1886 Spencer composed a long two-part article, 'The Factors of Organic Evolution', in which he defended the role of functionally acquired modification in evolution, frequently citing Darwin's own employment of the device in the Origin of the Species and Descent of Man. In the preface to the republication of the articles in book form the next year, he declared what was at stake in his defense of the mechanism of acquired modifications. It was the 'indirect bearings upon Psychology, Ethics, and Sociology.' The profound importance of these bearings on the social sciences, he confessed, was 'originally a chief prompter to set forth the argument; and it now prompts me to re-issue in in permanent form.' Survival of the fittest was too crude a mechanism to yield up delicate mental structures, refined social adaptations, and a keen sense of justice — especially since these highly evolved traits had no survival value" [Robert J. Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior, p. 293]. Indeed, Richards argues, "Modern physiological and cognitive psychology is Kantian. Not in the way Kant was a Kantian, but in the way Spencer was. The infant comes into the world already outfitted with perceptual and cognitive categories by which it organizes its experience. It does not encounter Dingen an sich but objects that bear the marks of the races's evolutionary history. Though we now, of course, reject the inheritance of acquired characters, we still must agree with Spencer that human nature arises out of experience — our own immediate experience, that which constitutes our individual history, and, most importantly, the adaptational experiences of our ancestors" [p. 328].
Part of Spencer's grand project for a Synthetic Philosophy, which he worked on from 1862 to 1893. It is in this work that Spencer first used the term "survival of the fittest," which became the pop mantra for the later 19th-century Social Darwinians. Originally issued in parts to subscribers."The Principles of Biology attempted to reconcile the new Darwinian theory of natural selection with the Lamarckian mechanism of acquired characteristics which Spencer had endorsed long before publication of the Origin of the Species. In Spencer's view, while the Darwinian theory could explain most of biological evolution, the Lamarckian mechanism was necessary to explain 'higher' evolution, and especially the social behaviour of humanity. Both theories, however, instantiated the principle of evolution. In this sense, therefore, it is incorrect to characterize Spencer as a follower of Darwin. Although he coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest', and is often misrepresentated as a thinker who merely applied the Darwininan theory to society, he did not aim to generalize Darwin, but rather to show that natural selection could be accomodated within an overarching principle of evolution that Spencer had independently developed. Biological organisms could be shown to progress, both as individuals and as species, from simple, undifferentiated, homogeneity to complex, differentiated, heterogeneity; the Darwinian theory was only of significance in providing a partial explanation for this universally observed tendency" [Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophy vol. 2:1055].
Vastly enlarged from the first edition with the addition of over 300 pages of material.
(No British edition). Includes "Morals and Moral Sentiments"; "Origin of Animal Worship"; "The Classification of the Sciences"; "Postscript—Replying to Criticisms"; "Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of Comte"; "Of Laws in General, and the Order of Their Discovery"; "The Genesis of Science."
Spencer's first book, the main title of which he borrowed from Comte. Written while Spencer still worked as a writer and subeditor for James Wilson's weekly The Economist.Social Statics extended and developed several themes Spencer had originally expressed in his 1842 pamphlet The Proper Sphere of Government. "However, the Social Statics also contained the germ of what was to become one of the hallmarks of Spencer's philosophical work, his emphasis on finding a synthesis between contending schools of thought. In this book Spencer gave attention for the first time to utilitarianism, which he argued was a partial doctrine, needing to be supplemented by the insights of an intuitionistic natural rights theory to provide a satisfactory theory of morals. he also postulated a future state, the 'social statics' of the book's title, in which humankind would become sufficiently well adapted to the social condition that each individual would act instinctively to respect the rights of every other. Hence the need for law and government would disappear. In Spencer's youthful exuberance he believed that civilization was on the verge of achieving this state. By the time he had returned to the same themes at the culmination of the Synthetic Philosophy forty years later, he had come to believe that the condition of social statics would only be achieved, if at all, as the result of the glacial processes of evolution" [Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophers vol. 2:1053].
Revised version of the author's doctoral thesis at the European University Institute in Florence.
The first full-scale biography of Proudhon in English.
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