A Brief History Of The Paradox

Author : Roy Sorensen
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190289317
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Brief History of the Paradox written by Roy Sorensen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-12-04 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Can time have a beginning? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Riddles, paradoxes, conundrums--for millennia the human mind has found such knotty logical problems both perplexing and irresistible. Now Roy Sorensen offers the first narrative history of paradoxes, a fascinating and eye-opening account that extends from the ancient Greeks, through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and into the twentieth century. When Augustine asked what God was doing before He made the world, he was told: "Preparing hell for people who ask questions like that." A Brief History of the Paradox takes a close look at "questions like that" and the philosophers who have asked them, beginning with the folk riddles that inspired Anaximander to erect the first metaphysical system and ending with such thinkers as Lewis Carroll, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and W.V. Quine. Organized chronologically, the book is divided into twenty-four chapters, each of which pairs a philosopher with a major paradox, allowing for extended consideration and putting a human face on the strategies that have been taken toward these puzzles. Readers get to follow the minds of Zeno, Socrates, Aquinas, Ockham, Pascal, Kant, Hegel, and many other major philosophers deep inside the tangles of paradox, looking for, and sometimes finding, a way out. Filled with illuminating anecdotes and vividly written, A Brief History of the Paradox will appeal to anyone who finds trying to answer unanswerable questions a paradoxically pleasant endeavor.

Author : Roy Sorensen
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780199728572
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Brief History of the Paradox written by Roy Sorensen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-12-04 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Can time have a beginning? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Riddles, paradoxes, conundrums--for millennia the human mind has found such knotty logical problems both perplexing and irresistible. Now Roy Sorensen offers the first narrative history of paradoxes, a fascinating and eye-opening account that extends from the ancient Greeks, through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and into the twentieth century. When Augustine asked what God was doing before He made the world, he was told: "Preparing hell for people who ask questions like that." A Brief History of the Paradox takes a close look at "questions like that" and the philosophers who have asked them, beginning with the folk riddles that inspired Anaximander to erect the first metaphysical system and ending with such thinkers as Lewis Carroll, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and W.V. Quine. Organized chronologically, the book is divided into twenty-four chapters, each of which pairs a philosopher with a major paradox, allowing for extended consideration and putting a human face on the strategies that have been taken toward these puzzles. Readers get to follow the minds of Zeno, Socrates, Aquinas, Ockham, Pascal, Kant, Hegel, and many other major philosophers deep inside the tangles of paradox, looking for, and sometimes finding, a way out. Filled with illuminating anecdotes and vividly written, A Brief History of the Paradox will appeal to anyone who finds trying to answer unanswerable questions a paradoxically pleasant endeavor.

Author : Peter Charles Hoffer
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814737153
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Historians' Paradox written by Peter Charles Hoffer and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2010-08-02 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How do we know what happened in the past? We cannot go back, and no amount of historical data can enable us to understand with absolute certainty what life was like then. It is easy to demolish the very idea of historical knowing, but it is impossible to demolish the importance of historical knowing. In an age of cable television pundits and anonymous bloggers dueling over history, the value of owning history increases at the same time as our confidence in history as a way of knowing crumbles. Historical knowledge thus presents a paradox - the more it is required, the less reliable it has become. To reconcile this paradox - that history is impossible but necessary - Peter Charles Hoffer proposes a practical, workable philosophy of history for our times, one that is robust and realistic, and that speaks to anyone who reads, writes and teaches history. The philosophy of history that Hoffer supports in The Historians' Paradox is driven by a continual and careful search for the authentic, but without confining the real to a finite or closed set of facts. Hoffer urges us to think and live with a keen awareness that history is everywhere, to accept the impossibility of measuring its reliability, but to never approach it unquestioningly. Covering a sweeping range of philosophies (from ancient history to game theory), methodological approaches to writing history, and the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies of argument, Hoffer constructs a philosophy of history that is reasonable, free of fallacy, and supported by appropriate evidence that is itself tenable. The Historians' Paradox brings together accounts of actual historical events, anecdotes about historians, insights from philosophers of history, and the personal experience of a long time scholar and teacher. Throughout, Hoffer liberally spices the mixture with humor to create a philosophy of history for our times."--publisher.

Author : Roy A. Sorensen
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780197730027
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Brief History of the Paradox written by Roy A. Sorensen and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the entire history of philosophy, from the Greeks, through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and the twentieth century, showing how individual philosophers have each grappled with a particular paradox.

Author : Terryl L. Givens
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780198037361
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book People of Paradox written by Terryl L. Givens and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-29 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In People of Paradox, Terryl Givens traces the rise and development of Mormon culture from the days of Joseph Smith in upstate New York, through Brigham Young's founding of the Territory of Deseret on the shores of Great Salt Lake, to the spread of the Latter-Day Saints around the globe. Throughout the last century and a half, Givens notes, distinctive traditions have emerged among the Latter-Day Saints, shaped by dynamic tensions--or paradoxes--that give Mormon cultural expression much of its vitality. Here is a religion shaped by a rigid authoritarian hierarchy and radical individualism; by prophetic certainty and a celebration of learning and intellectual investigation; by existence in exile and a yearning for integration and acceptance by the larger world. Givens divides Mormon history into two periods, separated by the renunciation of polygamy in 1890. In each, he explores the life of the mind, the emphasis on education, the importance of architecture and urban planning (so apparent in Salt Lake City and Mormon temples around the world), and Mormon accomplishments in music and dance, theater, film, literature, and the visual arts. He situates such cultural practices in the context of the society of the larger nation and, in more recent years, the world. Today, he observes, only fourteen percent of Mormon believers live in the United States. Mormonism has never been more prominent in public life. But there is a rich inner life beneath the public surface, one deftly captured in this sympathetic, nuanced account by a leading authority on Mormon history and thought.

Author : Harvey Levenstein
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520234406
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Paradox of Plenty written by Harvey Levenstein and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-05-30 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is intended for those interested in US food habits and diets during the 20th century, American history, American social life and customs.

Author : Joseph Mazur
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9780525949923
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Motion Paradox written by Joseph Mazur and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the epic history of Greek philosopher Zeno's yet-unsolved paradox of motion, citing the contributions of top minds to the scientific community's understanding of the elusive basic structure of time and space.

Author : Gary Gerstle
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691178216
Total Pages : 470 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Liberty and Coercion written by Gary Gerstle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the conflict between federal and state power has shaped American history American governance is burdened by a paradox. On the one hand, Americans don't want "big government" meddling in their lives; on the other hand, they have repeatedly enlisted governmental help to impose their views regarding marriage, abortion, religion, and schooling on their neighbors. These contradictory stances on the role of public power have paralyzed policymaking and generated rancorous disputes about government’s legitimate scope. How did we reach this political impasse? Historian Gary Gerstle, looking at two hundred years of U.S. history, argues that the roots of the current crisis lie in two contrasting theories of power that the Framers inscribed in the Constitution. One theory shaped the federal government, setting limits on its power in order to protect personal liberty. Another theory molded the states, authorizing them to go to extraordinary lengths, even to the point of violating individual rights, to advance the "good and welfare of the commonwealth." The Framers believed these theories could coexist comfortably, but conflict between the two has largely defined American history. Gerstle shows how national political leaders improvised brilliantly to stretch the power of the federal government beyond where it was meant to go—but at the cost of giving private interests and state governments too much sway over public policy. The states could be innovative, too. More impressive was their staying power. Only in the 1960s did the federal government, impelled by the Cold War and civil rights movement, definitively assert its primacy. But as the power of the central state expanded, its constitutional authority did not keep pace. Conservatives rebelled, making the battle over government’s proper dominion the defining issue of our time. From the Revolution to the Tea Party, and the Bill of Rights to the national security state, Liberty and Coercion is a revelatory account of the making and unmaking of government in America.

Author : Nicola Chiaromonte
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Paradox of History written by Nicola Chiaromonte and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Laura C. Sweat
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 0567215709
Total Pages : 223 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Theological Role of Paradox in the Gospel of Mark written by Laura C. Sweat and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarship on the Gospel of Mark has long been convinced of the paradoxical description of two of its primary themes, christology and discipleship. This book argues that paradoxical language pervades the entire narrative, and that it serves a theological purpose in describing God's activity. Part One focuses on divine action present in Mark 4:10-12. In the first paradox, Mark portrays God's revelatory acts as consistently accompanied by concealment. The second paradox is shown in the various ways in which divine action confirms, yet counters, scripture. Finally, Mark describes God's actions in ways that indicate both wastefulness and goodness; deeds that are further illuminated by the ongoing, yet defeated, presence of evil. Part Two demonstrates that this paradoxical language is widely attested across Mark's passion narrative, as he continues to depict God's activity with the use of the three paradoxes observed in Mark 4. Through paradoxical narrative, Mark emphasizes God's transcendence and presence, showing that even though Jesus has brought revelation, a complete understanding of God remains tantalizingly out of their grasp until the eschaton (4:22).