This book examines the legacy of philosophical idealism in twentieth century British historical and political thought. It demonstrates that the absolute idealism of the nineteenth century was radically transformed by R.G. Collingwood, Michael Oakeshott, and Benedetto Croce. These new idealists developed a new philosophy of history with an emphasis on the study of human agency, and historicist humanism. This study unearths the impact of the new idealism on the thought of a group of prominent revisionist historians in the welfare state period, focusing on E.H. Carr, Isaiah Berlin, G.R. Elton, Peter Laslett, and George Kitson Clark. It shows that these historians used the new idealism to restate the nature of history and to revise modern English history against the backdrop of the intellectual, social and political problems of the welfare state period, thus making new idealist revisionism a key tradition in early postwar historiography.

The present framing of the cultural debate in terms of materialism versus religion has allowed materialism to go unchallenged as the only rationally-viable metaphysics. This book seeks to change this. It uncovers the absurd implications of materialism and then, uniquely, presents a hard-nosed non-materialist metaphysics substantiated by skepticism, hard empirical evidence, and clear logical argumentation. It lays out a coherent framework upon which one can interpret and make sense of every natural phenomenon and physical law, as well as the modalities of human consciousness, without materialist assumptions. According to this framework, the brain is merely the image of a self-localization process of mind, analogously to how a whirlpool is the image of a self-localization process of water. The brain doesn’t generate mind in the same way that a whirlpool doesn’t generate water. It is the brain that is in mind, not mind in the brain. Physical death is merely a de-clenching of awareness. The book closes with a series of educated speculations regarding the afterlife, psychic phenomena, and other related subjects. ,

A rigorous case for the primacy of mind in nature, from philosophy to neuroscience, psychology and physics. The Idea of the World offers a grounded alternative to the frenzy of unrestrained abstractions and unexamined assumptions in philosophy and science today. This book examines what can be learned about the nature of reality based on conceptual parsimony, straightforward logic and empirical evidence from fields as diverse as physics and neuroscience. It compiles an overarching case for idealism - the notion that reality is essentially mental - from ten original articles the author has previously published in leading academic journals. The case begins with an exposition of the logical fallacies and internal contradictions of the reigning physicalist ontology and its popular alternatives, such as bottom-up panpsychism. It then advances a compelling formulation of idealism that elegantly makes sense of - and reconciles - classical and quantum worlds. The main objections to idealism are systematically refuted and empirical evidence is reviewed that corroborates the formulation presented here. The book closes with an analysis of the hidden psychological motivations behind mainstream physicalism and the implications of idealism for the way we relate to the world.

This book is a multi-faceted exploration and critique of the human condition as it is presently manifested. It addresses science and philosophy, explores the underlying nature of reality, the state of our society and culture, the influence of the mainstream media, the nature of free will and a number of other topics. Each of these examinations contributes an angle to an emerging idea gestalt that challenges present mainstream views and behaviors and offers a sane alternative. The book is organized as a series of short and self-contained essays, most of which can be read in under one hour.

This book examines the question of death in the light of Heidegger's paradigmatic discussion in Being and Time. Although Heidegger's own treatment deliberately refrains from engaging theological perspectives, George Pattison suggests that these not only serve to bring out problematic elements in his own approach but also point to the larger human or anthropological issues in play. Pattison reveals where and how Heidegger and theology part ways but also how Heidegger can helpfully challenge theology to rethink one of its own fundamental questions: human beings' relation to their death and the meaning of death in their religious lives.

Socrates's death in 399 BCE has figured largely in our world, shaping how we think about heroism and celebrity, religion and family life, state control and individual freedom--many of the key coordinates of Western culture. Wilson analyzes the enormous and enduring power the trial and death of Socrates has exerted over the Western imagination.

A century ago the dominant philosophical outlook was not some form of materialism or naturalism, but idealism. However, this way of thinking about reality fell out of favour in the Anglo-American analytic tradition as well as the Continental schools of the twentieth century. The aim of this book is to restage and reassess the encounter between idealism and contemporary philosophy. The idealist side will be represented by the great figures of the 19th-century post-Kantian tradition in Germany, from Fichte and Schelling to Hegel, followed by the towering Hegelians in Britain led by T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley and Bernard Bosanquet. Their twentieth-century adversaries will be represented by the secular existentialists, especially the famous French trio of Sartre, Beauvoir and Camus, who sought to follow Nietzsche in philosophizing in light of the death of God. And the arena of encounter will be the philosophy of religion—more specifically, questions relating to the nature and existence of God, death and the meaning of life, and the problem of evil. The book argues that the existentialist critique of idealism enables an innovative as well as a more critical and adventurous approach that is sorely needed in philosophy of religion today. Idealism after Existentialism will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in the history of ninteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy and philosophy of religion.