Movements

Mary Catherine Bateson

Compositions in Living Cybernetics
Frederick Steier

This collection of essays from authors representing a range of disciplines from anthropology to design to creativity and spirituality, as well as transdisciplinary perspectives that are at the heart of cybernetics, honours Mary Catherine Bateson's life and work.

Humberto Maturana

Reflections on Bringing Forth Worlds
Frederick Steier

This volume is grounded in a deep appreciation of the rich and cohesive constellation of ideas developed by Humberto Maturana which, taken as a whole, can be understood as a biocultural matrix of human understanding.

The Architecture of Ideas

The Life and Work of Ranulph Glanville, Cybernetician
Bill Seaman

This book contains a collection of writings related to the work of Ranulph Glanville. The editor, Bill Seaman, includes a piece titled 'Composing Composing' which explores a number of Glanville's texts. Also included is an interview with Glanville titled 'A Long Conversation', and a text by Aartle Hulstein, Ranulph's wife.

Idealism & Experience

The Philosophy of Guido de Ruggiero
Bruce Haddock

Idealism & Experience: The Philosophy of Guido de Ruggiero comprises eight new critical essays, as well as English translations of five of de Ruggiero's most important shorter writings, which chart the development of his thought between 1914 and 1946.

British Idealism and International Thought

The Development of Human Rights
Nazli Pinar Kaymaz

This book gives a comprehensive account of the British Idealist approach to international relations from the 1880s to 1930s. In an attempt to historically contextualise the shifts in several British Idealists' approaches to the nature of international relations and human rights, it focuses on on the 2nd Boer War, WWI and the League of Nations.

Laws of Form: Spencer-Brown at Esalen, 1973

Louis H. Kauffman

This Special Issue of Cybernetics and Human Knowing contains rare material related to G. Spencer-Brown's book Laws of Form and its contents. In 1973 there was a conference at Big Sur at which Spencer-Brown discussed his calculus with a group of scientists. In this issue we print Walter Barney’s transcripts of the conference.

Michael Oakeshott as a Philosopher of the "Creative"

And Other Essays
Wendell John Coats, Jr.

This book is a collection of eight essays on the work of the twentieth-century English philosophic essayist, Michael Oakeshott. Six of them advance the view in different ways that Oakeshott's multifarious lifework may be understood as variations on a singular insight — that the structure of experiential reality is 'creative' or 'poetic'.

The Life and Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe

John Haldane

This volume in the St Andrews series contains a collection of essays from leading authors regarding the work of Elizabeth Anscombe, in particular issues in mind and metaphysics, and can be considered a partner work to 2016's The Moral Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe (also published by Imprint Academic).

Lady Mary Shepherd

Selected Writings
Deborah Boyle

A collection of works published by Lady Mary Shepherd, brought together in one volume with an introduction by the editor and published as part of the Library of Scottish Philosophy series.

Laws of Form

Commentary and Remembrance for George Spencer-Brown
Louis H. Kauffman

This volume is a collection of articles on themes related to the book Laws of Form by George Spencer-Brown.

Michael Oakeshott: Notebooks, 1922-86

Michael Oakeshott

The sixth volume in the series Michael Oakeshott: Selected Writings. From the 1920s to the 1980s Oakeshott filled dozens of notebooks with his private reflections, both personal and intellectual. Their contents range from aphorisms to miniature essays, forming a unique record of his intellectual trajectory over his entire career.

Thomas Reid on Religion

James J.S. Foster

This volume — a companion to Thomas Reid: Selected Philosophical Writings (2012) — makes available material from Thomas Reid's autograph manuscripts and student notes of his lectures. It includes an introductory essay by Nicholas Wolterstorff.

The Place of Michael Oakeshott in Contemporary Western and Non-Western Thought

Noël O'Sullivan

Essays by contributors from Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, India, and the USA provide a comprehensive critical assessment of the principal aspects of Oakeshott's thought that account for his contemporary relevance.

Lord Kames

Selected Writings
Andreas Rahmatian

Library of Scottish Philosophy volume containing selected writings of Henry Home, Lord Kames, judge, jurist and philosopher.

Ranulph Glanville and How to Live the Cybernetics of Unknowing

Soren Brier

A festschrift issue of Cybernetics and Human Knowing focusing on the work of Ranulph Glanville, cybernetician, design researcher, theorist, educator and multi-platform artist/designer/performer.

The Moral Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe

Luke Gormally

In this collection of new essays deriving from a conference held in Oxford aspects of Elizabeth Anscombe's moral philosophy are examined. Anyone interested in Anscombe's work all want to read this volume.

Spinoza

Basic Concepts
Andre Santos Campos

Spinoza: Basic Concepts explores key concepts involved in Spinoza's thinking, relating it to his understanding of philosophy, outlining the arguments and explaining the implications of each concept. Together, the chapters cover the full range of Spinoza’s interdisciplinary system of philosophy.

Logic, Truth and Meaning

Writings of G.E.M. Anscombe
Mary Geach

This fourth and final volume of writings by Elizabeth Anscombe reprints her Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, together with a number of later essays on thought and language in which she explores issues of reason, representation, truth and existence.

Thought Thinking

The Philosophy of Giovanni Gentile
Bruce Haddock

This book comprises eleven essays on Gentile's thought. Seven of these are new pieces written especially for Thought Thinking, supplemented by new English translations of four of Gentile's shorter works, selected to offer some direct insight into his ideas and style of writing.

Giovanni Gentile and the State of Contemporary Constructivism

A Study of Actual Idealist Moral Theory
James Wakefield

Giovanni Gentile and the State of Contemporary Constructivism represents the first book-length treatment of actual idealist moral theory.

The Legendary Past

Michael Oakeshott on Imagination and Political Identity
Natalie Riendeau

The book explores Oakeshott's thought on the key role human imagination plays in relation to the political.

Francis Hutcheson

Selected Philosophical Writings
John McHugh

Known today mainly as a teacher of Adam Smith (1723–90) and an influence on David Hume (1711–76), Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) was a first-rate thinker whose work deserves study on its own merit. Spanning his entire literary career, this collection brings together selections from Hutcheson's greater and lesser known works.

Scottish Philosophy of Rhetoric

Rosaleen Keefe

The selected writings chosen for this volume show how Scottish rhetorical textbooks were a practical extension of the philosophy of language developed by 18th century Scottish philosophers.

History as Thought and Action

The Philosophies of Croce, Gentile, de Ruggiero and Collingwood
Rik Peters

This is the first book-length study of the relationship between Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944), Guido de Ruggiero (1888-1948) and Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943).

Oakeshott on Rome and America

Gene Callahan

This book explores how the histories of Rome and America can help us to understand Oakeshott's claims about rational versus traditional politics.

Civil Society, Capitalism and the State

Part Two of the Liberal Socialism of T.H. Green
Colin Tyler

This book presents a critical reconstruction of the social and political facets of Thomas Hill Green's liberal socialism. It builds on Colin Tyler's The Metaphysics of Self-realisation and Freedom (2010), although it can also be read as a freestanding work.

Thomas Reid

Selected Philosophical Writings
Giovanni Grandi

The aim of this comprehensive selection of his writings is to make the key elements of Reid's philosophical work available to a new generation of readers.

Scottish Philosophy in America

James J.S. Foster

The Scottish Enlightenment provided the fledgling United States of America and its emerging universities with a philosophical orientation. This volume in the Library of Scottish Philosophy demonstrates the remarkable extent of this philosophical influence.

The Philosophy of Punishment

Anthony Ellis

In this volume, the author sets aside the usual division between theories of punishment that do or do not focus on retribution. In its place he proposes and explores the distinction between internalist and externalist theories.

The Meanings of Michael Oakeshott's Conservatism

Corey Abel

This collection of recent scholarship on the thought of Michael Oakeshott includes essays by both distinguished and established authors as well as a fresh crop of younger talent. Together, they address the meanings of Oakeshott's conservatism through the lenses of his ideas on religion, history, and tradition.

From Plato to Wittgenstein

Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe
G.E.M. Anscombe

More treasures from the archive of papers left by philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, edited by her daughter and son-in-law, philosophers Mary Geach and Luke Gormally.

James Frederick Ferrier

Selected Writings
Jennifer Keefe

This volume contains selections from the philosophical writings of James Frederick Ferrier (1808-1864). Ferrier was the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews between 1845 and 1864 and he was one of the earliest post-Hegelian British idealists.

Truth and Faith in Ethics

Hayden Ramsay

This addition to the St Andrews Studies series contains a wide-ranging collection of essays on all aspects of moral philosophy and its impact upon public life in the twent-first century.

The Scientific Metaphysics of Charles S. Peirce

Bent Sorensen

This collection of articles investigates central themes and difficulties in the metaphysics of C.S. Peirce.

The Creation of Reality

A Constructivist Epistemology of Journalism and Journalism Education
Bernhard Poerksen

In this book, Bernhard Poerksen draws up a new rationale for constructivist thinking and charts out directions for the imaginative examination of personal certainties and the certainties of others, of ideologies great and small.

Michael Oakeshott: Early Political Writings 1925-30

A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to politics
Michael Oakeshott

This volume contains two previously unpublished works, a manuscript entitled 'A Discussion of some Matters Preliminary to the Study of Political Philosophy', and the first version of a course of lectures on 'The Philosophical Approach to Politics' that Oakeshott gave between 1928 and 1930.

The Metaphysics of Self-realisation and Freedom

Part One of the Liberal Socialism of Thomas Hill Green
Colin Tyler

This first part of Colin Tyler's new critical assessment of the social and political thought of T.H. Green (1836–1882) explores the grounding that Green gives to liberal socialism.

The Legacy of Leo Strauss

Tony Burns

This volume of essays opens up the topic of Leo Strauss and the Straussians to those outside the relatively narrow circles who have been concerned with him and his followers up to now.

Thomas Brown

Selected Philosophical Writings
Thomas Dixon

The selections in this volume illustrate Brown's original ideas about mental science, cause and effect, emotions and ethics. They are preceded by an introduction situating Brown’s career and writings in their intellectual and historical context.

Transdisciplinary Cybernetics and Cybersemiotics

Soren Brier

The guiding idea behind this collection of papers is a presentation of the transdisciplinary scope of the new semiotics offering a deeper and broader framework than the structuralist semiology.

The Foundations of History

Collingwood's Analysis of Historical Explanation
Stephen Leach

This book provides an exposition and critical examination of Collingwood's philosophy of history, in which Collingwood's views are read in the light of his metaphilosophy.

Hobbes's Behemoth

Religion and Democracy
Tomaz Mastnak

This volume contains analyses and interpretations of the Behemoth: the structure of its argument, its relation to Hobbes's other writings, and its place in its philosophical, theological, political, and religious historical context.

Moral, Social and Political Philosophy of the British Idealists

William Sweet

The British idealists of the late 19th and early 20th century are best known for their contributions to metaphysics, logic, and political philosophy. Yet they also made important contributions to social and public policy, social and moral philosophy and moral education, as shown by this volume.

The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence

Michael Oakeshott

This volume brings together for the first time over a hundred of Oakeshott's essays and reviews, written between 1926 and 1951, that until now have remained scattered through a variety of scholarly journals, periodicals and newspapers.

Darwinian Conservatism

A Disputed Question
Larry Arnhart

A reprint of Larry Arnhart's essay Darwinian Conservatism with comment and criticism from a variety of contributors.

The Democratic Theory of Michael Oakeshott

Discourse, Contingency and the Politics of Conversation
Michael Minch

This book offers a description, explanation, and evaluation of Michael Oakeshott's democratic theory. He was not a democratic theorist as such, but as a twentieth-century English political theorist for whom liberal theory held deep importance, his thought often engaged democratic theory implicitly, and many times did so explicitly.

Vocabulary of a Modern European State

Essays and Reviews 1953-1988
Luke O'Sullivan

The Vocabulary of a Modern European State is the companion volume to The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence and completes the enterprise of gathering together Oakeshott's previously scattered essays and reviews.

Faith in a Hard Ground

Essays on Religion, Philosophy and Ethics
G.E.M. Anscombe

Elizabeth Anscombe's forthright philosophy speaks directly to many religious and ethical issues of current concern.This collection of her essays forms a companion volume to the critically acclaimed Human Life, Action and Ethics published in 2005.

Liberty, Authority, Formality

John Morrow

The essays in this volume are all inspired by the historical scholarship of J.C. Davis. Davis's analyses of groups like the Levellers and individuals like Gerrard Winstanley and Oliver Cromwell has reoriented the inquiry around the contemporary moral themes of liberty, authority and formality -- around which concepts this volume engages.

Michael Oakeshott, the Ancient Greeks, and the Philosophical Study of Politics

Eric S. Kos

This book addresses a question fundamental for Oakeshott throughout his life, which is what we are doing when we read and discuss some memorable work in the history of political thought.

In Bed with Madness

Trying to make sense in a world that doesn't
Yannis Andricopoulos

In Bed with Madness is 'a well-argued, powerful and profound indictment of contemporary culture', stylishly written – a reviewer said he would have bought it just for its humour!

Collingwood and the Crisis of Western Civilisation

Art, Metaphysics and Dialectic
Richard Murphy

This book argues that Collingwood's philosophy is best understood as a diagnosis of and response to a crisis of Western civilisation. He is demonstrated to be working in the traditions of Romanticism and 'historicism'.

Unpublished Manuscripts in British Idealism

Political Philosophy, Theology and Social Thought
Colin Tyler

The British Idealist movement flourished between the 1860s and 1920s and exerted a very significant influence in the USA, India and Canada, most notably on John Dewey and Josiah Royce. This important collection widens access to unpublished material by transcribing, editing and then publishing the most significant pieces.

Histories and Discourses

Rewriting Constructivism
Siegfried J. Schmidt

Siegfried J. Schmidt is closely associated in Germany with the cross-disciplinary research programme of Radical Constructivism. In Histories & Discourses he carries out a change of perspective from media and communication studies to studies of culture and the philosophy of language.

Education and the Voice of Michael Oakeshott

Kevin Williams

The work of Michael Oakeshott has retained a striking currency in philosophical discourse about education. In the light of this continuing interest and of Oakeshott's extensive writing on so many aspects of education, it is timely that a book be published on his thinking on the subject.

Politics and Society in Scottish Thought

Shinichi Nagao

This volume illustrates the way political and social philosophers of 18th-century Scotland tried to answer the following question: 'What is, and what ought to be, the relationship between the modern market and stable, desirable social order?'

Scottish Philosophical Theology

David Fergusson

This volume concentrates on the period from the beginning of the 18th century to the latter part of the 20th. It is impossible to depict a single school of philosophical theology in Scotland across three centuries, yet several strains have been identified.

John Grote, Cambridge University and the Development of Victorian Thought

John R. Gibbins

This book answers three questions: How did John Grote develop and contribute to modern Cambridge and British philosophy? What is the significance of these contributions to modern philosophy in general and British Idealism and language philosophy in particular? How were his ideas and his idealism incorporated into the modern philosophical tradition?

Peirce and Spencer-Brown

History and Synergies in Cybersemiotics
Soren Brier

This special double issue of Cybernetics and Human Knowing is comprised of a collection of papers devoted to the cybernetics and mathematics of Charles Sanders Peirce with a special focus on its synergies with George Spencer-Brown's thinking.

Dialectics of the Self

Transcending Charles Taylor
Ian Fraser

Charles Taylor is a philosopher concerned with morality and the nature of the identity of individuals and groups in the West. This book offers an evaluation of Taylor's conception of self, and its moral and political possibilities.

Earthy Realism

The Meaning of Gaia
Mary Midgley

GAIA, named after the ancient Greek mother-goddess, is the notion that the Earth and the life on it form an active, self-maintaining whole. With global warming now an accepted fact, the lessons of GAIA have never been more relevant and urgent.

Lectures in the History of Political Thought

Luke O'Sullivan

Oakeshott's memorable lectures on the history of political thought, delivered each year at the London School of Economics, are now available in print for the first time as Volume II of his Selected Writings.

Intimations Pursued

The Voice of Practice in the Conversation of Michael Oakeshott
Andrew Sullivan

In this book Andrew Sullivan examines Oakeshott's transition from his original emphasis on philosophy as providing what was ultimately satisfactory in experience to his later emphasis on practical life.

Debating Humanism

Dolan Cummings

This book features a cross-disciplinary dialogue among writers who are sympathetic to the humanist tradition and interested in developing a new humanist project through debate.

Human Life, Action and Ethics

Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe
Mary Geach

This volume presents a collection of essays by the celebrated philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. This collection includes papers on human nature and practical philosophy, together with the classic 'Modern Moral Philosophy'.

Puritan Democracy of Thomas Hill Green

Alberto De Sanctis

The central concern of this book is to demonstrate how Puritanism was a theme which ran through all Green's biography and political philosophy.

Darwinian Conservatism

Larry Arnhart

This book suggests that Darwinian biology sustains conservative social thought by showing how the human capacity for spontaneous order arises from social instincts and a moral sense shaped by natural selection in human evolutionary history.

Religious and Poetic Experience in the Thought of Michael Oakeshott

Glenn Worthington

This book argues that Oakeshott's characterisations of religious and poetic experience provide a more detailed account of the type of persona that emerged in response to what it perceived as an invitation to participate in moral association in the modern world.

From a Necessary Evil to an Art of Contingency

Michael Oakeshott's Conception of Political Activity
Suvi Soininen

This book presents a comprehensive study of Oakeshott's conception of political activity. The author first examines Oakeshott in the contexts of liberal, conservative and Idealist thought, and then presents a detailed interpretation of the change in his conception of politics in the context of British postwar political thought.

Intellectual Legacy of Michael Oakeshott

Timothy Fuller

This volume brings together a diverse range of perspectives reflecting the international appeal and multi-disciplinary interest that Oakeshott now attracts. The essays offer a variety of approaches to Oakeshott's thought.

T.H. Green's Theory of Positive Freedom

Ben Wempe

In this new and entirely revised edition of his study of Green's theory of positive freedom, Ben Wempe argues that the far-reaching and beneficial influence of Green’s political doctrine, on public policy as well as in the field of political theory, was founded on a misinterpretation of his philosophical stand.

Relativism and the Foundations of Liberalism

Graham Long

Moral relativism is often regarded as both fatally flawed and incompatible with liberalism. This book aims to show why such criticism is misconceived.

Philosophy and Its Public Role

John Haldane

This brings together moral, social and political philosophers from Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States who explore a wide range of issues under the three headings of Philosophy, Society and Culture; Ethics, Economics and Justice; and Rights, Law and Punishment.

Snake That Swallowed Its Tail

Some Contradictions in Modern Liberalism
Mark Garnett

Tracing its effects through the media, politics and the public services, the author argues that hollowed-out liberalism has helped to produce our present discontent.

Scottish Idealists

Selected Philosophical Writings
David Boucher

This collection of readings, the first of its kind, has been chosen with a view to displaying the variety, richness and strength of the Scottish Idealist tradition.

John MacMurray

Selected Philosophical Writings
John MacMurray

The philosophy of John Macmurray is only now receiving the attention it deserves. It is in the contemporary climate of dissatisfaction with individualism that Macmurray's emphasis on the relations of persons has come to the fore.

James Beattie

Selected Philosophical Writings
James Beattie

The first part of this selection — the first ever made from Beattie's prose writings — includes several key chapters from the Essay on Truth, along with extracts from all of Beattie's other works on moral philosophy. The second part of the selection is devoted to Beattie's contributions to literary criticism and aesthetics.

Limits of Political Theory

Oakeshott's Philosophy of Civil Association
Kenneth B. McIntyre

This book examines Oakeshott's political philosophy within the context of his more general conception of philosophical understanding. The book stresses the underlying continuity of his major writings on the subject and takes seriously the implications of understanding the world in terms of modality.

Greenian Moment

Denys Leighton

This study of T.H. Green views his philosophical opus through his public life and political commitments, and it uses biography as a lens through which to examine Victorian political culture and its moral climate.

Scottish Philosophy

Selected Writings 1690-1950
Gordon Graham

This collection of readings, the first of its kind, has been chosen with a view to displaying the variety, richness and strength of the Scottish philosophical tradition.

Thomas Sebeok and the Biosemiotic Legacy

Soren Brier

Dedicated to the life and work of Thomas Sebeok, this is an issue of the journal "Cybernetics and Human Knowing".

What is History? And Other Essays

Selected Writings
Luke O'Sullivan

This highly readable new collection of thirty pieces by Michael Oakeshott, almost all of which are previously unpublished, covers every decade of his intellectual career.

Certainty of Uncertainty

Dialogues Introducing Constructivism
Bernhard Poerksen

This book presents the views of the founders of constructivism and modern systems theory, who are still providing stimulating cues for international scientific debate. Throughout, the central figure of the observer is examined with sophisticated wit and just enough irritating grit to create the pearl in the oyster.

How Good an Historian Shall I be?

Marnie Hughes-Warrington

In this book Marnie Hughes-Warrington begins with the facet of Collingwood's work best known to teachers — re-enactment — and locates it in historically-informed discussions on empathy, imagination and history education.

Michael Oakeshott on Hobbes

Ian Tregenza

While many commentators have noted the importance of Hobbes for understanding Oakeshott's thought itself, this is the first book to provide a systematic interpretation of Oakeshott’s philosophy by paying close attention to all facets of Oakeshott’s reading of Hobbes.

In Defence of Modernity

The Social Thought of Michael Oakeshott
Efraim Podoksik

Although Oakeshott's philosophy has received considerable attention, the vision which underlies it has been almost completely ignored. This vision, which is rooted in the intellectual debates of his epoch, cements his ideas into a coherent whole and provides a compelling defence of modernity.

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