Practical Thought

Practical Thought: Essays on Reasons, Intuition, and Action presents a selection of Jonathan Dancy's most important philosophical essays since the late 1970s, focusing on the central themes of his work: metaethics, moral metaphysics, the theory of motivation, and the British Intuitionists. The twenty-four essays in this book chart his intellectual journey.

How is it that in an argument both sides are always right? Dr. Edward de Bono bases this book on the Black Cylinder Experiment, with 1,000 participants, from which he derived that debaters fall into four categories of "rightness": emotional, logical, unique, and recognition rightness. In addition to exploring these four states, de Bono names five levels of understanding and five major mistakes of thinking.

Any sound practical philosophy must be clear on practical concepts—concepts, in particular, of life, action, and practice. This clarity is Michael Thompson’s aim in his ambitious work. In Thompson’s view, failure to comprehend the structures of thought and judgment expressed in these concepts has disfigured modern moral philosophy, rendering it incapable of addressing the larger questions that should be its focus. In three investigations, Thompson considers life, action, and practice successively, attempting to exhibit these interrelated concepts as pure categories of thought, and to show how a proper exposition of them must be Aristotelian in character. He contends that the pure character of these categories, and the Aristotelian forms of reflection necessary to grasp them, are systematically obscured by modern theoretical philosophy, which thus blocks the way to the renewal of practical philosophy. His work recovers the possibility, within the tradition of analytic philosophy, of hazarding powerful generalities, and of focusing on the larger issues—like “life”—that have the power to revive philosophy. As an attempt to relocate crucial concepts from moral philosophy and the theory of action into what might be called the metaphysics of life, this original work promises to reconfigure a whole sector of philosophy. It is a work that any student of contemporary philosophy must grapple with.

By developing an account of practical knowledge that situates Kant's ethics within his broader epistemology and rethinks numerous topics in his moral psychology and in his account of practical reason, this book promises to deepen and to reshape our understanding of Kantian ethics.

In Teaching Critical Thinking, renowned cultural critic and progressive educator bell hooks addresses some of the most compelling issues facing teachers in and out of the classroom today. In a series of short, accessible, and enlightening essays, hooks explores the confounding and sometimes controversial topics that teachers and students have urged her to address since the publication of the previous best-selling volumes in her Teaching series, Teaching to Transgress and Teaching Community. The issues are varied and broad, from whether meaningful teaching can take place in a large classroom setting to confronting issues of self-esteem. One professor, for example, asked how black female professors can maintain positive authority in a classroom without being seen through the lens of negative racist, sexist stereotypes. One teacher asked how to handle tears in the classroom, while another wanted to know how to use humor as a tool for learning. Addressing questions of race, gender, and class in this work, hooks discusses the complex balance that allows us to teach, value, and learn from works written by racist and sexist authors. Highlighting the importance of reading, she insists on the primacy of free speech, a democratic education of literacy. Throughout these essays, she celebrates the transformative power of critical thinking. This is provocative, powerful, and joyful intellectual work. It is a must read for anyone who is at all interested in education today.

A defense of a contemporary natural law theory of practical rationality.

On congregational care, religious education, theological education, clinical pastoral education and church consultation.