This book examines reason and unreason in the legal and political responses to terrorism. Terrorism is often perceived as sheer madness, unreasonable use of extreme violence and senseless, futile political action. These assertions are challenged by this book. Combining ‘traditional’ thought (by Kaplan) on reason and unreason in terrorism with empirical explorations of post-modern terrorism and its use of communication platforms (by Weimann) the work uses interdisciplinary and cross disciplinary dimensions to provide a multidimensional picture of critical issues in current politics and a deeper examination of their implications than previously available. The book looks at various aspects of modern politics, from terrorism to protest, from decision-making to political discourse, applying the perspective of philosophical thought. To do so, political issues and actions are examined by using concepts such as reason, emotions, madness, magic, morality, absolutism, extremism, psychopathology, rationality and others. The analysis is rooted in theories and concepts derived from history, philosophy, religion, art, sociology, psychology, and political science. This book, which was mostly written by the late Abraham Kaplan, an American philosopher, and edited and updated by Gabriel Weimann, will be of much interest to students of political violence/terrorism, philosophy, war and conflict studies and political science in general.

Product Description: Abraham Kaplan has created a brilliant and practical textbook for choral conducting teachers and students on the college or conservatory level.Often, during his long and active career in the choral field, the author felt the need for a textbook that streamlined the teaching of a subject that almost defies organization - choral conducting...read more

Product Description: A unique presentation of philosophy as an integral part of human culture. The whole of philosophy is the scope for this survey which portrays contemporary ideas in philosophy in continuity with the great ideas of the past. The author emphasizes our link with and dependency on the classical cultures of India, China and Japan...read more

Product Description: In arguably the finest text ever written in the philosophy of social science, Abraham Kaplan emphasizes what unites the behavioral sciences more than what distinguishes them from one another. Kaplan avoids the bitter disputes among people doing methodology, claiming instead that what is important are those qualities intrinsic to the overall aspirations of the social sciences...read more

Eight lectures on contemporary world philosophies, first delivered at U.C.L.A. in 1959-1960