Solipsism indicates an epistemological position that denies the existence of ‘others’ by asserting that the ‘self’ is the only thing that can be known to exist. For sophist philosophers, the belief that “we can not know anything, and even if we do so, we cannot communicate it” is central to this theory. However, until now there has been little academic scholarship that has tried to provide answers to the pressing issues raised by solipsism. In Solipsist Ontology: Physical Things and Personal Perceptual Space, Ural aims to redefine solipsism by analyzing and elaborating on traditional philosophical problems, such as empiricism and rationalism, as well as discussing problems of language, communication, and meaning. Ural reveals where solipsism has been previously ignored, pseudo-problems have arisen that disguise the sources of the problems with prejudices that concern the philosophical problems in question. Notably, many current, as well as traditional problems of ontology, epistemology, and language are bound up in discourses of solipsism. Ural argues that discarding solipsism as a philosophical discourse hinders new interpretations of traditional philosophical thought. This book offers a fresh perspective to solipsism by defining it in relation to concepts such as ‘physical things,’ ‘personal perceptual space’ and ‘identity.’ Importantly, Ural proposes that an understanding of ‘identity’ is not necessary in order to redefine solipsism. By building a logical system that fashions communication and solipsism as interrelated, it is possible to reject ‘identity’ as a useless concept and thus overcome the classic solipsist dilemma of “we are not able to communicate.” This original piece of research is an important and timely contribution to the field of philosophy that will be of great interest to teachers, researchers, and students.

Solipsism indicates an epistemological position that denies the existence of ‘others’ by asserting that the ‘self’ is the only thing that can be known to exist. For sophist philosophers, the belief that “we can not know anything, and even if we do so, we cannot communicate it” is central to this theory. However, until now there has been little academic scholarship that has tried to provide answers to the pressing issues raised by solipsism. In Solipsist Ontology: Physical Things and Personal Perceptual Space, Ural aims to redefine solipsism by analyzing and elaborating on traditional philosophical problems, such as empiricism and rationalism, as well as discussing problems of language, communication, and meaning. Ural reveals where solipsism has been previously ignored, pseudo-problems have arisen that disguise the sources of the problems with prejudices that concern the philosophical problems in question. Notably, many current, as well as traditional problems of ontology, epistemology, and language are bound up in discourses of solipsism. Ural argues that discarding solipsism as a philosophical discourse hinders new interpretations of traditional philosophical thought. This book offers a fresh perspective to solipsism by defining it in relation to concepts such as ‘physical things,’ ‘personal perceptual space’ and ‘identity.’ Importantly, Ural proposes that an understanding of ‘identity’ is not necessary in order to redefine solipsism. By building a logical system that fashions communication and solipsism as interrelated, it is possible to reject ‘identity’ as a useless concept and thus overcome the classic solipsist dilemma of “we are not able to communicate.” This original piece of research is an important and timely contribution to the field of philosophy that will be of great interest to teachers, researchers, and students.

This book of readings is designed to accomplish two tasks: to philosophize on Igwebuike and to honour Professor KANU, Ikechukwu Anthony, O.S.A. These two tasks or goals go hand in hand because Igwebuike is Professor Kanu’s philosophy. The book clearly demonstrates why Kanu deserves honour as an African philosopher who has introduced a way of doing African philosophy. It is an approach of doing philosophy that takes into account African ontology and cosmology. Igwebuike as a systematic African thought is exploratory in nature. It investigates issues with a view of seeing how they are related. Doing philosophy in this way takes into account not only the African context but the world as a complex entity with myriads of challenges. The myriads of challenges facing humanity have a representation in this book. For this reason the book is bound to have a global impact. In terms of philosophizing, this book demonstrates that Africa is confronted with many discourses. Discourses that are already going on but need a more systematic African philosophical approach. Some of the discourses are on the environment, governance, infrastructure, human and material resource among others. — Denis Odinga Okiya Maryknoll Insitute of African Studies, Nairobi, Kenya

Buddhist philosophy of Anicca (impermanence), Dukkha (suffering), and

The author argues that the process of incrementally constructing perceptual representations, solving the binding problem (determining which properties go together), and, more generally, grounding perceptual representations in experience arise from the nonconceptual capacity to pick out and keep track of a small number of sensory individuals. He proposes a mechanism in early vision that allows us to select a limited number of sensory objects, to reidentify each of them under certain conditions as the same individual seen before, and to keep track of their enduring individuality despite radical changes in their properties--all without the machinery of concepts, identity, and tenses. This mechanism, which he calls FINSTs (for "Fingers of Instantiation"), is responsible for our capacity to individuate and track several independently moving sensory objects--an ability that we exercise every waking minute, and one that can be understood as fundamental to the way we see and understand the world and to our sense of space.

This book is the second volume of an interdisciplinary study, chiefly one of philosophy and psychology, which concerns personality, especially the abnormal in terms of states of aloneness, primarily that of the negative emotional isolation customarily known as loneliness. Other states of aloneness investigated include solitude, reclusiveness, seclusion, desolation, isolation, and what the author terms “aloneliness,” “alonism,” “lonism,” and “lonerism.” Insofar as this study most explicitly focuses on abnormal personalities, it employs the general and specific definitions of personality aberrations as formulated by the American Psychiatric Association in its latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). The author views personality as preeminently comprised of the individual's interpersonal relationships. Unlike the DSM-IV, he proposes that people with personality disorders not only possibly but necessarily manifest deviancy regarding interpersonal functioning via serious shortcomings in shared inwardness, paramountly reciprocated intimacy. This work also engages in an analysis of five social factors that are conducive to predisposing, precipitating, and maintaining negative kinds of personality and aloneness. The author has formed these factors into an acronym titled SCRAM since when they are present, intimacy scurries away and in its absence, loneliness and other sorts of unwanted aloneness scamper in and fill the person with unhappiness via, for instance, sadness and self-worthlessness. The constituents of SCRAM are the following social illnesses: Successitis (for example, the fixation on fame and fortune), Capitalitis (greed-driven, unfettered capitalism), Rivalitis (competitivitis), Atomitis (hyper-individualism), and Materialitis (for example, the anti-spirituality of consumeritis). In sum, this book provides a different perspective on personality via the lenses of various types of aloneness and their lack of public and private intimacy, especially love.