Crossroads between culture and mind

Sample

José Medina

This book explores the epistemic side of oppression, focusing on racial and sexual oppression and their interconnections. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from interacting epistemically in fruitful ways--from listening to each other, learning from each other, and mutually enriching each other's perspectives. Medina's epistemology of resistance offers a contextualist theory of our complicity with epistemic injustices and a social connection model of shared responsibility for improving epistemic conditions of participation in social practices. Through the articulation of a new interactionism and polyphonic contextualism, the book develops a sustained argument about the role of the imagination in mediating social perceptions and interactions. It concludes that only through the cultivation of practices of resistance can we develop a social imagination that can help us become sensitive to the suffering of excluded and stigmatized subjects. Drawing on Feminist Standpoint Theory and Critical Race Theory, this book makes contributions to social epistemology and to recent discussions of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, epistemic responsibility, counter-performativity, and solidarity in the fight against racism and sexism.

Sample

Jean-Paul Sartre

First published in 1940, Sartre's The Imaginary is a cornerstone of his philosophy. Sartre had become acquainted with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl in Berlin and was fascinated by his idea of the "intentionality of consciousness" as a key to the puzzle of existence. Against this background, The Imaginary crystallized Sartre's worldview and artistic vision. Here he presented the first extended examination of the concepts of nothingness and freedom, both of which are derived from the ability of consciousness to imagine objects both as they are and as they are not. These ideas would drive Sartre's existentialism and his entire theory of human freedom, laying the foundation for his masterwork Being and Nothingness three years later. This new translation by Jonathan Webber rectifies flaws in the terminology of the first translation and recaptures the essence of Sartre's phenomenology. Webber's perceptive new introduction helps to decipher this challenging, seminal work, placing it in the context of the author's work and the history of philosophy.

Sample

Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence, Stephen Stich

Vol. 1-2 deal with the fundamental architecture of the mind, addressing such questions as: what capacities, processes, representations, biases, & connections are innate? How do these innate elements feed into a story about the development of our mature cognitive capacities, & which are shared with other members of the animal kingdom? Vol. 3: Concerned with the fundamental architecture of the mind, this text addresses questions about the existence & extent of human innate abilities, how these inate abilities affect the development of the mature mind, & which of them is shared with other species.

Sample

Valerie Tripp

In 1825 when Josefina trusts a trader in Santa Fe with an important deal, she makes a surprising discovery about this young American who leaves town without paying her.