Oswald Spengler zeichnet in Jahre der Entscheidung ein schonungslos kritisches Bild der modernen westlichen Zivilisation. Das Abendland sei dem Verfall anheimgegeben und auf dem Weg in den Tod, vergiftet von übertriebenem Rationalismus, Mangel an funktionierenden Hierarchien und allgemein verbreiteter Entwurzelung. Spenglers Beobachtungen stammen aus dem Deutschland der Zwischenkriegszeit, einer Periode die von politischer Unruhe und wirtschaftlichem Chaos geprägt ist. Es war Spengler klar dass die Welt nach der internationalen Kraftprobe, die im Anzug war, kaum wiederzuerkennen sein würde. Er betrachtete unsere Zeit als die schicksalsträchtigste und ernsteste der menschlichen Geschichte - eine Phase in der die Bestimmung von Völkern und Nationen entschieden werden würde. Die Betrachtungen Spenglers in Jahre der Entscheidung sind weder auf Deutschland noch auf die Periode zwischen den Weltkriegen beschränkt. Er beschreibt globale Geschehnisse, die sich vom zwanzigsten Jahrhundert ein gutes Stück hinein ins einundzwanzigste erstrecken. Spengler nennt unsere Epoche Zeitalter der Weltkriege und meint, dass dieses Zeitalter mindestens bis ins erste Jahrhundert des zweiten Millenniums andauern würde. Jahre der Entscheidung wurde rasch ein Verkaufserfolg, als das Buch 1933 in Deutschland erschien. Einige Zeit später wurde es jedoch verboten, weil Spengler die nationalsozialistische Politik in verschiedener Hinsicht kritisierte; unter anderem teilte er keinesfalls deren rassenbiologische Ausgangslage. Die vorliegende Neuausgabe ist ein Faksimile der Originalauflage. Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), deutscher Historiker und Philosoph, ist vor allem für seine Theorie bekannt, wonach Zivilisationen sich nicht linear, sondern zyklisch entwickeln: sie werden geboren, blühen auf und sterben auf eine Weise, die an lebendige Wesen erinnert. Er entfaltete diese These in seinem Hauptwerk Der Untergang des Abendlandes, das in zwei Bänden 1918 beziehungsweise 1922 erschien.

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Analyzes the nature of power in the USSR and its evolution since the Bolshevik Revolution. The main thrust of this work, however, is in tracing the fragmentation of power since Gorbachev introduced his reforms and examining the changes in the power structure as a result of perestroika.

These articles, written over a period of time from the end of World War II to the American invasion of Vietnam, expose the deception propagated by various administrations and their apologists. That deception was the claim that the United States Government was fighting for "freedom and democracy".

5-Volume Set. Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh where he also served for many years as Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science. He is a former president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, and has also served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the American Metaphysical Society, the American G W Leibniz Society, and the C S Peirce Society. An honorary member of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he has been elected to membership in the European Academy of Arts and Sciences (Academia Europaea), the Institut International de Philosophie, and several other learned academies. Having held visiting lectureships at Oxford, Constance, Salamanca, Munich, and Marburg, Professor Rescher has received six honorary degrees from universities on three continents. Author of some hundred books ranging over many areas of philosophy, over a dozen of them translated into other languages, he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship in 1984. Includes the following: Volume 10, Studies in the History of Logic; Volume 11, Studies in the Philosophy of Science; Volume 12, Studies in Metaphysical Optimalism; Volume 13, Studies in Leibniz's Cosmology; Volume 14, Studies in Autobiography.

""The Idea of War and Peace in Contemporary Philosophy"" by Irving Louis Horowitz is a thought-provoking book that delves into the philosophical concepts of war and peace. The author explores the various ways in which war and peace have been conceptualized by philosophers throughout history, and how these ideas have evolved over time. The book is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the idea of war, examining the philosophical underpinnings of war and the different ways in which it has been justified or condemned. Horowitz also looks at the role of war in modern society, and how it has been used as a tool for political and economic gain. The second part of the book deals with the idea of peace. Horowitz explores the various philosophical approaches to peace, including pacifism, just war theory, and the idea of a world without war. He also examines the practical challenges of achieving peace in a world that is often characterized by conflict and violence. Throughout the book, Horowitz draws on a wide range of philosophical sources, from ancient Greek thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle to modern-day philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt. He also includes examples from history and current events to illustrate his points and make the material more accessible to readers. Overall, ""The Idea of War and Peace in Contemporary Philosophy"" is a thought-provoking and insightful book that will appeal to anyone interested in the philosophical concepts of war and peace. It is a must-read for students of philosophy, political science, and international relations, as well as anyone interested in the pressing issues of war and peace in the modern world.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

The human mind abhors the absence of explanation, but full understanding is never possible. Human understanding is likely to be incomplete at best and, more often, utterly fallacious. To make matters worse, it is likely to be supported as truth and wisdom by religious and scientific authority, intellectual fashion and social convention. In Words to the Wise, Thomas Szasz offers a compendium of thoughts, observations, and aphorisms that address our understanding of a broad range of subjects, from birth to death. In this book, Szasz tackles a problem intrinsic to the human condition. What problem? In the words of the American humorist Josh Billings: "The trouble with people is not what they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." Many of Thomas Szasz's books have been devoted to exposing what "ain't so" about mental illness and psychiatry. Here, Szasz applies the same skeptical spirit to the larger problem of people knowing much that "ain't so." About addiction, Szasz observes: "If a person ingests a drug prohibited by legislators and claims that it makes him feel better, that proves he is an addict; if he ingests a drug prescribed by a psychiatrist and claims that it makes him feel better, that proves that mental illness is a biomedical disease." About beauty: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; ugliness is in the personality of the beholden." About libertarians: "Libertarians regard liberty as contingent on the right to property; scientists regard disease as contingent on pathological alteration of the body. All libertarians reject the notion of 'socialist liberty, ' yet many accept the notion of 'mental disease.'" Or about power: "Many of my critics say I am hostile to medicine and physicians. They are wrong. I am hostile only to the power of the medical profession and of physicians." Szasz notes that despite enormous social pressure for a shared perspective on how the world works and how we ought to live, every person'saunderstanding, not only of himself, but of the world about him, is different from every other person's. This volume shows how the quest for truth is a never-ending challenge, and must presuppose an honest acceptance of questions, problems, and uncertainty.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: Large Print by Ludwig Wittgenstein Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it--or at least similar thoughts.--So it is not a textbook.--Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it.The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is misunderstood. The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

Der Text Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland ist eine in essayistischem Stil geschriebene Abhandlung des deutsch-jüdischen Dichters Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). Er entstand 1833/34 zur Zeit des Pariser Exils Heines, wurde zunächst auf französisch veröffentlicht und bildet damit einen Teil seiner Bemühungen um ein besseres Verständnis beider Völker füreinander. Die deutsche Erstausgabe erfolgte in "Der Salon. Zweiter Band" (1834).

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Talking Wolves advances an analysis of Hobbes which takes language seriously (as seriously as Hobbes took it). It presents a reading of Hobbes's view of society at large, and political society in particular, through a comprehensive discussion based on, and intimately linked to, his philosophy of language. This philosophy, in turn, is seen in a new light as being a pragmatic theory of language in use, language in action.

Philosophical work comes in different sizes: there are systemic treatises, monographic surveys, philosopher-expanding texts. But there is also room for smaller studies that focus on highly particularized ideas and issues: studies that deal not with entire continents but with mere reefs and estuaries. The present essays are of this limited nature. Their aim is less to give a view of the overall lay of the land than to give a tranistic view of the diversity of the landscape. The present book continues Rescher's longstanding practice of publishing groups of philosophical essays that originated in occasional lecture and conference presentations. Notwithstanding their topical diversity the essays exhibit a uniformity of method in a common attempt to view historically significant philosophical issues in the light of modern perspectives opened up thorough conceptual clarification.

While philosophers from Plato to Kant and beyond have discussed the mission and methodology of philosophy, this area of deliberation has only recently been acknowledged as a distinctive branch of philosophy as such, duly entitled metaphilosophy. There are, as yet, very few books on the subject so that the present volume joins a rather select group. Professor Rescher has published in the field for some thirty years and this book gathers together a representative sampling of his contributions. Taken together these pieces convey an instructive overview of the field, as well as vividly conveying their author's take on the key issues that constitute its problem domain.

Whereas science, technology, and medicine have all called forth dedicated philosophical investigations, a fourth major contributor to the technoscientific world in which we all live - that is, engineering - has been accorded almost none of the philosophical attention it deserves. This volume thus offers a first characterisation of this important new field, by some of the primary philosophers and ethicists interested in engineering and leading engineers interested in philosophical reflections. The volume deals with such questions as: What is engineering? In what respect does engineering differ from science? What ethical problems does engineering raise? By what ethical principles are engineers guided? How do engineers themselves conceive of their profession? What do they see as the main philosophical challenges confronting them in the 21st century? The authors respond to these and other questions from philosophical and engineering view points and so illustrate how together they can meet the challenges and realize the opportunities present in the necessary encounters between philosophy and engineering - encounters that are ever more important in an increasingly engineered world and its problematic futures.

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DOES DISCOURSE HAVE A 'STRUCTURE'? HARRIS'S REVOLUTION IN LINGUISTICS As a freshman back in 1947 I discovered that within the various academic divisions and subdivisions of the University of Pennsylvania there existed a something (it was not a Department, but a piece of the Anthropology Department) called 'Linguistic Analysis'. I was an untalented but enthusiastic student of Greek and a slightly more talented student of German, as well as the son of a translator, so the idea of 'Linguistic Analysis' attracted me, sight unseen, and I signed up for a course. It turned out that 'Linguistic Analysis' was essentially a graduate program - I and another undergraduate called Noam Chomsky were the only two undergraduates who took courses in Linguistic Analysis - and also that it was essentially a one-man show: a professor named Zellig Harris taught all the courses with the aid of graduate Teaching Fellows (and possibly - I am not sure - one Assistant Professor). The technicalities of Linguistic Analysis were formidable, and I never did master them all. But the powerful intellect and personality of Zellig Harris drew me like a lodestone, and, although I majored in Philosophy, I took every course there was to take in Linguistic Analysis from then until my gradua tion. What 'Linguistics' was like before Zellig Harris is something not many people care to remember today.