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This book presents a theory of aesthetic judgment and appreciation in the spirit of modern empiricism. There are three parts: the first deals with questions of philosophical logic, the second with questions in the philosophy of mind, and the third with questions in the philosophy of art. Thus the argument advances from a theory of aesthetic judgment (and in particularly of “aesthetic description”) to a theory of aesthetic appreciation, and thence to an account of the nature and value of art. 
       Scruton examines and rejects various attempts made by recent philosophers to demarcate the realm of aesthetic judgment. He argues that the logic of aesthetic judgment does not suffice to distinguish what is “aesthetic” from what is not, for aesthetic judgments must be explained in terms of the conditions for their acceptance rather than the conditions for their truth. These “acceptance conditions” can be understood only if we first know what is meant by aesthetic experience. This theory attempts to show how aesthetic experience can be regarded as autonomous, even though it is intimately connected with ordinary experience, and is indeed dependent on ordinary experience for its full description.

The De Anima (On the Soul) is the first and most general of Aristotle’s biological works and as such is the most important work in the study of nature after the Physics of Aristotle. It is presupposed to Aristotle’s Sense and the Sensible, Memory and Reminiscence, and his many other biological works. 

In this text, Aristotle discusses his predecessors’ views of life, defines the principle of life (“soul”), discusses the principle sorts of living things (plants, animals, and human beings), and analyzes the chief activities of each sort of life. In the case of rational life, he shows that the ability to think implies an immaterial aspect to the human soul.

The De Anima is necessary not only to the study of biology, but also advances the understanding of metaphysics, of ethics and of politics, and even of logic, insofar as logic directs the acts of the human mind.

Like Coughlin’s translation of Aristotle’s Physics (also published by St. Augustine Press), this translation attempts to be literal and concrete. The edition includes the translation, introduction, glossary, index, and explanatory notes.

Knowledge and the Transcendent advances the provocative claim that the human mind is not "bounded" on the outside but actually remains "open" to the world and to God.

Written for students, Mind, Matter, and Nature presumes no prior philosophical training on the part of the reader. The book nevertheless holds the arguments discussed to rigorous standards and is conversant with recent literature, thus making it useful as well to more advanced students and professionals interested in a resource on Thomistic hylomorphism in the philosophy of mind.

A history of modern mindfulness meditation and a critique of it as a practice that deeply misunderstands human consciousness.

Mindfulness meditation is often presented as a simple practice of turning inward and quieting the world to discover an authentic “inner voice,” but the very idea that consciousness contains such a voice depends on a slew of contradictory beliefs about Buddhism, neuroscience, and more. In Out of Mind, R. John Williams challenges the core (and misguided) assumptions about human nature that shaped the development of modern meditation, revealing how they were informed by nineteenth-century theosophy, German idealism, Buddhist modernism, Heideggerian mindfulness, Cold War brainwashing, and even phenomena like sensory deprivation tanks. Against the notion that truth lies hidden in our brains, Williams argues that we are never sealed off from the world. Our consciousness extends beyond our own minds—into the intricate web of language, literature, art, and other people to which we are intimately connected.

These papers treat those issues involved in formulating a logic of propositional attitudes and consider the relevance of the attitudes to the continuing study of both the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. C. Anthony Anderson is professor of philosophy and Joseph Owens is assistant professor of philosophy, both at the University of Minnesota.

The chief aims of Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect are to provide a comprehensive interpretation of Aquinas's oft-repeated claim that the human intellect is immaterial, and to assess his arguments on behalf of this claim. Adam Wood argues that Aquinas's claim refers primarily to the mode in which the human intellect has its act of being. That the human intellect has an immaterial mode of being, however, crucially underwrites Aquinas's additional views that the human soul is subsistent and incorruptible. To show how it does so, Wood argues that the human intellect's immateriality can also be put in terms of the impossibility of explaining its operations in terms of coordination between bodily parts, states and processes. Aquinas's arguments for the human intellect's immateriality, therefore, can be understood as attempts to show why intellectual operations cannot be explained in bodily terms. The book argues that not all of them succeed in this aim and also proposes, however, a novel interpretation of Aquinas's argument based on human intellect's universal mode of cognition that may indeed be sound. Wood concludes by considering the ramifications of Aquinas's position on matters pertaining to the afterlife. Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect represents the first book-length examination of Aquinas's claim that the human intellect is immaterial, and so — given the centrality of this claim to his thought — should interest any scholars interested in understanding Thomas. While it focuses throughout on careful attention to Aquinas's texts along with the relevant secondary literature, it also positions Thomas's thought alongside recent developments in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. Hence it should also interest historically-minded metaphysicians interested in understanding how Thomas's hylomorphism intersects with recent work in hylomorphic metaphysics, philosophers of mind interested in understanding how Thomas's philosophical psychology relates to contemporary forms of dualism, physicalism and emergentism, and philosophers of religion interested in the possibility of the resurrection.

A holistic introduction to Wittgenstein’s philosophy that approaches him as a philosopher of ordinary life.

One of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s most consequential claims was that the meaning of the word, its sense, is its use in language. This deceptively simple claim, the foundation of what became known as ordinary language philosophy, has animated thinkers across disciplinary bounds from metaphysics to ethics and more. In The Senses of Use, Sandra Laugier embarks on a fresh journey through Wittgenstein’s corpus that emphasizes the place of ordinary life and language in its thought. Through his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Philosophical Investigations, and rich posthumously published works, Laugier offers a compelling new look at Wittgenstein as a philosopher of mind.