Jamie Lennox

Philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand is a cultural phenomenon. Her books have sold more than 25 million copies, and countless individuals speak of her writings as having significantly influenced their lives. In spite of the popular interest in her ideas, or perhaps because of it, Rand’s work has until recently received little serious attention from academics. Though best known among philosophers for her strong support of egoism in ethics and capitalism in politics, there is an increasingly widespread awareness of both the range and the systematic character of Rand’s philosophic thought. This new series, developed in conjunction with the Ayn Rand Society, an affiliated group of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, seeks a fuller scholarly understanding of this highly original and influential thinker. The first volume starts not with the metaphysical and epistemological fundamentals of Rand’s thought, but with central aspects of her ethical theory. Though her endorsement of ethical egoism is well-known—one of her most familiar essay collections is _The Virtue of Selfishness—_the character of her egoism is not. The chapters in this volume address the basis of her egoism in a virtue-centered normative ethics; her account of how moral norms in general are themselves based on a fundamental choice by an agent to value his own life; and how her own approach to the foundations of ethics is to be compared and contrasted with familiar approaches in the analytic ethical tradition. Philosophers interested in the objectivity of value, in the way ethical theory is virtue-based, and in acquiring a serious understanding of an egoistic moral theory worthy of attention will find much to consider in this volume, which includes critical responses to several of its main essays

Aristotle is a rarity in the history of philosophy and science - he is a towering figure in the history of both disciplines. Moreover, he devoted a great deal of philosophical attention to the nature of scientific knowledge. How then do his philosophical reflections on scientific knowledge impact his actual scientific inquiries? In this book James Lennox sets out to answer this question. He argues that Aristotle has a richly normative view of scientific inquiry, and that those norms are of two kinds: a general, question-guided framework applicable to all scientific inquiries, and domain-specific norms reflecting differences in the target of inquiry and in the means of observation available to researchers. To see these norms of inquiry in action, the second half of this book examines Aristotle's investigations of animals, the soul, material compounds, the motions of heavenly bodies, and respiration.

Darwin's Dangerous Idea is a wide-ranging, exciting read: full of wit, challenging ideas, and forthright argumentation. Daniel Dennett's dangerous idea is that "the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law". In explicit opposition to those who think it devoid of implications beyond the biological realm, Dennett sees the Darwinian revolution as a "universal acid," working its way relentlessly through every area of life, "transforming the world view of those who know its details". The villains of the tale are those who have not got the message. Surprisingly, they include some of evolution's greatest promoters: much of chapters 8-11 is devoted to demonstrating that Stephen J. Gould does not get Darwin's message.

It was Ayn Rand's conviction that philosophy is a life and death matter, both for individuals and cultures. She was not a historian of philosophy, but a philosopher deeply interested in its history. This chapter discusses the approach Rand took in her exploration of the history of philosophy, and later in writing about that history. This provides us with the needed framework for looking at a number of distinctive conclusions she derives from her study of the history of philosophy, which lead her to reject some of the standard ways of unifying and distinguishing “schools” of philosophy and locating figures within these schools. Finally, with that background as context, the chapter deals with her provocative claims about the place of Aristotle and Immanuel Kant in the history of philosophy and culture generally.

Aristotle is without question the founder of the science of biology. In his treatise On the Parts of Animals, he develops his systematic principles for biological investigation, and explanation, and applies those principles to explain why the different animal kinds have the different parts that they do. It is one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. This new translation from the Greek aims to reflect the subtlety and detail of Aristotle's reasoning. The commentary provides help in understanding each argument as well as an integrated account of the goals and methods of the work taken as a whole.

Aristotle is without question the founder of the science of biology. In his treatise On the Parts of Animals, he develops his systematic principles for biological investigation, and explanation, and applies those principles to explain why the different animal kinds have the different parts that they do. It is one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. This new translation from the Greek aims to reflect the subtlety and detail of Aristotle's reasoning. The commentary provides help in understanding each argument as well as an integrated account of the goals and methods of the work taken as a whole.