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In Reality: Fundamental Topics in Metaphysics, Peter Loptson argues for a conception of metaphysics as the most general or comprehensive method of inquiry. Working from a broadly analytic and naturalist perspective, he confronts positions that claim metaphysics to be impossible, as advanced in ancient, Kantian, post-Kantian, and contemporary philosophy, showing them to be unsuccessful. He draws the topics of his selective investigation of metaphysics partly from the work of Kant, whom he conceives as a primary guide to what metaphysical enquiry seeks to know.

Philosophical Apprenticeships gathers fresh and innovative essays written by the next generation of Canada's philosophers on the work of prominent Canadian philosophers currently researching topics in continental philosophy. The authors--doctoral students studying at Canadian universities--have studied with, worked with, or been deeply influenced by these philosophers. Their essays present, discuss, and develop the work of their mentors, addressing issues such as time, art, politics, hermeneutics, and phenomenology.

Freedom, Nature, and World is a collection of essays by Peter Loptson which examine issues posed by a broadly naturalistic view of the world, which Loptson defends while also exploring some of the challenges it confronts. Papers on freedom, Kant, Christianity, Homer, the history of analytic philosophy, the place of humanity in nature, and other topics, are brought together within a synoptically naturalistic purview.

This work underscores the need to examine history philosophically, not only to better appreciate how it unfolds and relates to our own unfolding lives, but to better appreciate our free engagement in this changing world. Linking a conception of ourselves as free beings to the historical process was of central importance to the classical speculative philosophies of history of the nineteenth century, most notably Hegel’s. Michel Foucault’s work is often taken to be the antithesis of this kind of speculative approach.

Le premier défi de la démocratie est de donner le "goût de l’avenir" (Alexis de Tocqueville), de générer l'enthousiasme qui poussera les jeunes d'esprit à progresser d'eux-mêmes vers de nouvelles quêtes de sens et de savoir, à renouveler peut-être surtout, dans le contexte des nouvelles connaissances et d'une prise de conscience accrue des richesses des différentes cultures, les questions que l'on appelle "ultimes et les plus hautes", pour citer Husserl, celles que la science exclut par principe et qui sont pourtant "les questions

L'Europe se trouve aujourd'hui en position d'accusée, souvent par les Européens eux-mêmes, du fait de sa prétention à l'universalité, de sa supériorité proclamée et de son arrogance intellectuelle. Qu'elle n'ait pas toujours été fidèle à ses principes, lors de la colonisation des autres peuples, ne met pourtant pas en cause sa légitimité.

When a storyteller loses his voice, he believes he's lost everything. In fact, he's been given a great gift. Once upon a time, a successful storyteller lost his voice to throat cancer. Deprived of the instrument of his art and his livelihood, he retreated into dark, sullen silence and depression. While searching for a spiritual explanation, he encountered his former mentor, a cantankerous and often drunk old man.

John Kaag, a disillusioned philosopher, stumbles upon a trove of rare books on an old estate that once belonged to the Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. American Philosophy is an investigation of pragmatism and the wisdom that underlies a meaningful life.

Alan Lightman explores the emotional and philosophical questions raised by discoveries in science, focusing on the human condition and the needs of mankind. He suggests that, perhaps, what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the extraordinary whole.

Lorsque nous questionnons le sens de l’existentialité de l’être humain sur la planète, les pensées divergent. Certains d’entre-nous soutiennent J.J. Rousseau dans le fait que l’homme est fondamentalement bon et d’autres, à l’instar de Darwin considèrent que l’homme n’est que le fruit d’une évolution où seuls les plus forts survivent. Serait-il possible en fait que l’homme soit fondamentalement bon, mais déconnecté de sa nature humaine et de sa sensibilité parce qu’il est stimulé à vivre comme un imbécile?