Value and Existence

Value and Existence PDF Author: John Leslie
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description


Value and Existence

Value and Existence PDF Author: John Leslie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780631116004
Category : Cosmology
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description


The Meaning and Value of Life

The Meaning and Value of Life PDF Author: Rudolf Eucken
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Life
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description


Value And Existence

Value And Existence PDF Author: No Lossky
Publisher: Legare Street Press
ISBN: 9781019450017
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
One of the most influential works in Russian philosophy, Value and Existence examines the nature of reality through a deep exploration of the concept of value. Drawing on the insights of thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, and Hegel, Lossky offers a profound and insightful vision of the world and our place in it. Rich with both philosophical and theological insights, Value and Existence is a classic work of Russian thought that still resonates today. 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.

The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory

The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory PDF Author: Iwao Hirose
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190273356
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Book Description
Value theory, or axiology, looks at what things are good or bad, how good or bad they are, and, most fundamentally, what it is for a thing to be good or bad. Questions about value and about what is valuable are important to moral philosophers, since most moral theories hold that we ought to promote the good (even if this is not the only thing we ought to do). This Handbook focuses on value theory as it pertains to ethics, broadly construed, and provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary debates pertaining not only to philosophy but also to other disciplines-most notably, political theory and economics. The Handbook's twenty-two newly commissioned chapters are divided into three parts. Part I: Foundations concerns fundamental and interrelated issues about the nature of value and distinctions between kinds of value. Part II: Structure concerns formal properties of value that bear on the possibilities of measuring and comparing value. Part III: Extensions, finally, considers specific topics, ranging from health to freedom, where questions of value figure prominently.

Better Never to Have Been

Better Never to Have Been PDF Author: David Benatar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199549265
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
Most people believe that they were either benefited or at least not harmed by being brought into existence. David Benatar presents a startling challenge to these assumptions. He argues that people systematically overestimate the quality of their life, and suffer quite serious harms by coming into existence.

Value, Obligation, and Meta-Ethics

Value, Obligation, and Meta-Ethics PDF Author: Robin Attfield
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004433546
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Book Description
This work defends an interrelated set of theses in value-theory, normative ethics and meta-ethics. The three Parts correspond to these three areas. Part One (Value) defends a biocentric theory of moral standing, and then the coherence and objectivity of belief in intrinsic value, despite recent objections. Intrinsic value is located in the flourishing of living creatures; specifically, a neo-Aristotelian, species-relative account is supplied of wellbeing or flourishing, in terms of the development of the essential capacities of one's species. There follows a theory of priorities, or of relative intrinsic value, in which the satisfaction of basic needs takes priority over other needs and over wants, and the interests of complex and sophisticated creatures over those of others, where they are at stake. Part Two defends a practice-consequentialist theory of the criteria of rightness and of obligation, which leaves room for supererogation, underpins our intuitions about justice, commends population growth only where it is genuinely desirable, and responds better than act-consequentialism to objections like that concerned with the separateness of persons. Part Three sifts meta-ethical theories, rejects moral relativism, and defends a cognitivist and naturalist meta-ethic. In defending analytical naturalism, it takes into account the latest literature on supervenience. By responding to recent discussions, this study supersedes my Theory of Value and Obligation (1987). It is equipped with detailed end-notes and an ample bibliography, which could prove a research tool of itself.

The Meaning of Human Existence

The Meaning of Human Existence PDF Author: Edward O. Wilson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 087140480X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
National Book Award Finalist. How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?" In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other species. Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey, in the process bridging science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence—from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends. Continuing his groundbreaking examination of our "Anthropocene Epoch," which he began with The Social Conquest of Earth, described by the New York Times as "a sweeping account of the human rise to domination of the biosphere," here Wilson posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way. Once criticized for a purely mechanistic view of human life and an overreliance on genetic predetermination, Wilson presents in The Meaning of Human Existence his most expansive and advanced theories on the sovereignty of human life, recognizing that, even though the human and the spider evolved similarly, the poet's sonnet is wholly different from the spider's web. Whether attempting to explicate "The Riddle of the Human Species," "Free Will," or "Religion"; warning of "The Collapse of Biodiversity"; or even creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.," Wilson does indeed believe that humanity holds a special position in the known universe. The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham.

Reference and Existence

Reference and Existence PDF Author: Saul A. Kripke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190660619
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Book Description
This work can be read as a sequel to Kripke's classic Naming and Necessity, confronting important issues left open in that work and developing a novel approach to questions concerning empty names and existence. It provides along the way novel treatments of fictional and mythological discourse, the pragmatics of definite and indefinite descriptions and the language of sense data.

The Problem of Existence

The Problem of Existence PDF Author: Arthur Witherall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351883542
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Book Description
This book explores the question of why there is something instead of nothing. Several responses to this question are possible, but only some of them address the question seriously, respecting its emotional aspects as well as its cognitive dimension. The author carefully distinguishes those answers that are truly satisfactory, in both respects, from those that are inadequate. It can be argued that the existence of the world has no explanation at all, or that there is a necessary being whose existence is self-explanatory, or that the world exists because it has value. Each kind of response is defensible to some degree, and it is argued that where they are defensible, they have a common content. Incorporating aspects of both the 'analytical' and 'continental' traditions, this book also responds to several historical philosophers concerned with these questions, including Plato, Leibniz, Kant and Nietzsche.