Representative men

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Sheldon M. Cohen

This book examines Aristotle's metaphysics and his account of nature, stressing the ways in which his desire to explain observed natural processes shaped his philosophical thought. It departs radically from a tradition of interpretation in which Aristotle is understood to have approached problems with a set of abstract principles in hand - principles derived from critical reflection on the views of his predecessors. A central example in the book interprets Aristotle's essentialism as deriving from an examination of the kinds of unity that various sorts of things have, and from his account of elemental motion, alteration, transformation, and the growth of organisms. An important conclusion of this argument is that a substance may, under certain circumstances, lack some of its essential attributes. The book goes on to develop a notion of incomplete substance and explores the connection between Aristotle's concept of nature and its role in scientific explanation. In this way Cohen breaks down the sharp division that many interpreters have chosen to see between Aristotle's natural science and his philosophy. This is a major reevaluation of Aristotle's metaphysics that will interest philosophers, classicists, and historians of classical science.

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Mélina Mangal

A biography of the Puritan woman who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for disagreeing with the prevailing religious practices.

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Mary Ann Wells

"Before I had heard of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or even Jesus, I knew who William Weatherford was. He was Red Eagle, the icon implanted in my heart as an example of what a truly noble human being should be," Mary Ann Wells says of her distant kinsman. Red Eagle, the child of a Scottish trader and a mixed-blood Muscogean mother, became a notable leader among the Red Stick Creeks and was the unyielding adversary of the American government during the Creek War of 1813-14. He stands accused in traditional accounts of having masterminded one of the worst massacres of whites in American history. This book, for the first time, gives an Indian perspective to the narrative. To find the real Red Eagle, Wells has probed the published records and combined them with stories she had heard from family members. Her true encounter with Red Eagle occurs, however, in mystic experiences. She finds him not in the processes of linear thought of European history but through the thought world of Native American narrative. Wells, who identifies herself both as a mystic and a revisionist, acknowledges that she has inherited both Billy Weatherford's bloodline and his ethnic identity. Shifting between historical episodes and the present, Wells pursues the true story. Her suspenseful prose gives a visceral sense of how Indians felt as victims of the American government and of how they had no recourse but to fight.

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Hao Wang

Hao Wang (1921-1995) was one of the few confidants of the great mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel. A Logical Journey is a continuation of Wang's Reflections on Gödel and also elaborates on discussions contained in From Mathematics to Philosophy. A decade in preparation, it contains important and unfamiliar insights into Gödel's views on a wide range of issues, from Platonism and the nature of logic, to minds and machines, the existence of God, and positivism and phenomenology.