Necessity Is

The main purpose of this book is the development of a new method for the semantical analysis of meaning, that is, a new method for analyzing and describing the meanings of linguistic expressions. This method, called the method of extension and intension, is developed by modifying and extending certain customary concepts, especially those of class and property. The method will be contrasted with various other semantical methods used in traditional philosophy or by contemporary authors. These other methods have one characteristic in common. They all regard an expression in a language as a name of a concrete or abstract entity. In contradistinction, the method here proposed takes an expression, not as naming anything, but as possessing an intension and an extension. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

An argument for why emergencies are no excuse for extralegal action by presidents Using emergency as a cause for action ultimately leads to an almost unnoticed evolution in the political understanding of presidential powers. The Constitution, however, was designed to function under "states of exception," most notably through the separation of powers, and provides ample internal checks on emergency actions taken under claims of necessity. Thomas Crocker urges Congress, the courts, and other bodies to put those checks into practice.

This book presents a necessitarian interpretation of Leibniz which grounds modal concepts in theology.

The end of apartheid in South Africa broke down political barriers, extending to all races the formal rights of citizenship, including the right to participate in free elections and parliamentary democracy. But South Africa remains one of the most economically polarized nations in the world. In The Politics of Necessity Elke Zuern forcefully argues that working toward greater socio-economic equality—access to food, housing, land, jobs—is crucial to achieving a successful and sustainable democracy. Drawing on interviews with local residents and activists in South Africa’s impoverished townships during more than a decade of dramatic political change, Zuern tracks the development of community organizing and reveals the shifting challenges faced by poor citizens. Under apartheid, township residents began organizing to press the government to address the basic material necessities of the poor and expanded their demands to include full civil and political rights. While the movement succeeded in gaining formal political rights, democratization led to a new government that instituted neo-liberal economic reforms and sought to minimize protest. In discouraging dissent and failing to reduce economic inequality, South Africa’s new democracy has continued to disempower the poor. By comparing movements in South Africa to those in other African and Latin American states, this book identifies profound challenges to democratization. Zuern asserts the fundamental indivisibility of all human rights, showing how protest movements that call attention to socio-economic demands, though often labeled a threat to democracy, offer significant opportunities for modern democracies to evolve into systems of rule that empower all citizens.

This is a reissue of a book which is an exploration and defence of the notion of modality 'de re', the idea that objects have both essential and accidental properties. It is one of the first full-length studies of the modalities to emerge from the debate to which Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Ruth Marcus and others have contributed. The argument is developed by means of the notion of possible worlds, and ranges over key problems including the nature of essence, trans-world identity, negative existential propositions, and the existence of unactual objects in other possible worlds. In the final chapters Professor Plantinga applies his logical theories to the clarification of two problems in the philosophy of religion - the Problem of Evil and the Ontological Argument.

2017 Sunburst Award for Adult Fiction Finalist Necessity: the sequel to the acclaimed The Just City and The Philosopher Kings, Jo Walton's tales of gods, humans, and what they have to learn from one another. More than sixty-five years ago, Pallas Athena founded the Just City on an island in the eastern Mediterranean, placing it centuries before the Trojan War, populating it with teachers and children from throughout human history, and committing it to building a society based on the principles of Plato's Republic. Among the City's children was Pytheas, secretly the god Apollo in human form. Sixty years ago, the Just City schismed into five cities, each devoted to a different version of the original vision. Forty years ago, the five cities managed to bring their squabbles to a close. But in consequence of their struggle, their existence finally came to the attention of Zeus, who can't allow them to remain in deep antiquity, changing the course of human history. Convinced by Apollo to spare the Cities, Zeus instead moved everything on the island to the planet Plato, circling its own distant sun. Now, more than a generation has passed. The Cities are flourishing on Plato, and even trading with multiple alien species. Then, on the same day, two things happen. Pytheas dies as a human, returning immediately as Apollo in his full glory. And there's suddenly a human ship in orbit around Plato--a ship from Earth. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The best Frank Zappa memoir yet, as told by the early members of the Mothers of Invention.

If there is such a thing as essential reading in metaphysics or in philosophy of language, this is it. Ever since the publication of its original version, Naming and Necessity has had great and increasing influence. It redirected philosophical attention to neglected questions of natural and metaphysical necessity and to the connections between these and theories of reference, in particular of naming, and of identity. From a critique of the dominant tendency to assimilate names to descriptions and more generally to treat their reference as a function of their Fregean sense, surprisingly deep and widespread consequences may be drawn. The largely discredited distinction between accidental and essential properties, both of individual things (including people) and of kinds of things, is revived. So is a consequent view of science as what seeks out the essences of natural kinds. Traditional objections to such views are dealt with by sharpening distinctions between epistemic and metaphysical necessity; in particular by the startling admission of necessary a posteriori truths. From these, in particular from identity statements using rigid designators whether of things or of kinds, further remarkable consequences are drawn for the natures of things, of people, and of kinds; strong objections follow, for example to identity versions of materialism as a theory of the mind. This seminal work, to which today's thriving essentialist metaphysics largely owes its impetus, is here published with a substantial new Preface by the author.

A “refreshing,” (Kirkus Reviews) unpretentious, and uplifting story about a father and son reconnecting and finding happiness in the most unlikely circumstances—for fans of Nick Hornby and The Rosie Project. Danny’s life is falling apart. His eleven-year-old son, Will, hasn’t spoken since the death of his mother in a car crash a year earlier, and Danny has just been fired from his construction job. He’s behind on the rent and his nasty landlord is threatening to break his legs if he doesn’t pay soon. Danny needs money, and fast. After observing street performers in a local park, Danny spends his last few dollars on a tattered panda costume, impulsively deciding to become a dancing bear. While performing one day, Danny spots his son being taunted by a group of older boys. Danny chases them off, and Will opens up for the first time since his mom died, unaware that the man in the panda costume is his father. Afraid of disclosing his true identity, Danny comforts his son. But will Danny lose Will’s trust once he reveals who he is? And will he be able to dance his way out of despair? Filled with a delightful cast of characters, Bear Necessity is “a moving, sensitive story that is also very funny, and a perfect literary antidote to anxious, troubled times” (Shelf Awareness).

Necessity is a notoriously dangerous and slippery concept-dangerous because it contemplates virtually unrestrained killing in warfare and slippery when used in conflicting ways in different areas of international law. Jens David Ohlin and Larry May untangle these confusing strands and perform a descriptive mapping of the ways that necessity operates in legal and philosophical arguments in jus ad bellum, jus in bello, human rights, and criminal law. Although the term "necessity" is ever-present in discussions regarding the law and ethics of killing, its meaning changes subtly depending on the context. It is sometimes an exception, at other times a constraint on government action, and most frequently a broad license in war that countenances the wholesale killing of enemy soldiers in battle. Is this legal status quo in war morally acceptable? Ohlin and May offer a normative and philosophical critique of international law's prevailing notion of jus in bello necessity and suggest ways that killing in warfare could be made more humane-not just against civilians but soldiers as well. Along the way, the authors apply their analysis to modern asymmetric conflicts with non-state actors and the military techniques most likely to be used against them. Presenting a rich tapestry of arguments from both contemporary and historical Just War theory, Necessity in International Law is the first full-length study of necessity as a legal and philosophical concept in international affairs.