The Nature And Future Of Philosophy

Author : Michael Dummett
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231522185
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Nature and Future of Philosophy written by Michael Dummett and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-29 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy is a discipline that makes no observations, conducts no experiments, and needs no input from experience. It is an armchair subject, requiring only thought. Yet that thought can advance knowledge in unexpected directions, not only through the discovery of new facts but also through the enhancement of what we already know. Philosophy can clarify our vision of the world and provide exciting ways to interpret it. Of course, philosophy's unified purpose hasn't kept the discipline from splintering into warring camps. Departments all over the world are divided among analytical and continental schools, Heidegger, Hegel, and other major thinkers, challenging the growth of the discipline and obscuring its relevance and intent. Having spent decades teaching in American, Asian, African, and European universities, Michael Dummett has felt firsthand the fractured state of contemporary practice and the urgent need for reconciliation. Setting forth a proposal for renewal and reengagement, Dummett begins with the nature of philosophical inquiry as it has developed for centuries, especially its exceptional openness and perspective-which has, ironically, led to our present crisis. He discusses philosophy in relation to science, religion, morality, language, and meaning and recommends avenues for healing around a renewed investigation of mind, language, and thought. Employing his trademark frankness and accessibility, Dummett asks philosophers to resolve theoretical difference and reclaim the vital work of their practice.

Author : Michael Dummett
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231150539
Total Pages : 162 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Nature and Future of Philosophy written by Michael Dummett and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy is a discipline that makes no observations, conducts no experiments, and needs no input from experience. It is an armchair subject, requiring only thought. Yet that thought can advance knowledge in unexpected directions, not only through the discovery of new facts but also through the enhancement of what we already know. Philosophy can clarify our vision of the world and provide exciting ways to interpret it. Of course, philosophy's unified purpose hasn't kept the discipline from splintering into warring camps. Departments all over the world are divided among analytical and continental schools, Heidegger, Hegel, and other major thinkers, challenging the growth of the discipline and obscuring its relevance and intent. Having spent decades teaching in American, Asian, African, and European universities, Michael Dummett has felt firsthand the fractured state of contemporary practice and the urgent need for reconciliation. Setting forth a proposal for renewal and reengagement, Dummett begins with the nature of philosophical inquiry as it has developed for centuries, especially its exceptional openness and perspective-which has, ironically, led to our present crisis. He discusses philosophy in relation to science, religion, morality, language, and meaning and recommends avenues for healing around a renewed investigation of mind, language, and thought. Employing his trademark frankness and accessibility, Dummett asks philosophers to resolve theoretical difference and reclaim the vital work of their practice.

Author : Jacob Bronowski
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780262520508
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.08/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Sense of the Future written by Jacob Bronowski and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jacob Bronowski truly educated an enormous number of members of that diffuse population usually referred to, with a hint of condescension, as "educated laymen" through his widely shared television series on the concepts of science and through such highly regarded books as The Identity of Manand The Ascent of Man.This volume extends the process to a further level of insight, and it may be more than suggestive that its final essay is entitled "The Fulfillment of Man." Bronowski was an extraordinary teacher precisely because he did not condescend to his audience. He did not talk down to them; he knew how to talk them up to something near his own level, however briefly. He felt that if human beings are taken seriously, they can be led to respond to serious and difficult subjects that relate to the deepest aspects of nature, both beyond and within themselves. A Sense of the Futuresucceeds brilliantly in this respect, in part because it is a collection of essays that can be read independently as self-contained, delimited presentations; and in part because the book is more than the sum of these individual essays—it is a unified whole in which Bronowski's most abiding concerns are interrelated, juxtaposed, and tested for consistency in various intellectual contexts. The major unifying theme of the work is the intensely creative and human nature of the scientific enterprise—its kinship, at the highest levels of individual achievement, with comparable manifestations of the artistic imagination, and its ethical imperatives, evolved within the community of scientists over the centuries, which both embody and forge the values of civilized life at large. Still, the book's diversity of topics is as striking as the unity of its aim. Among the subjects within the realm of Bronowski's mind that are presented here are the limitations of formal logic and experimental methods, the epistemology of science, the distinctive nature of human language and the human mind, and the bases of biological and cultural evolution. Bronowski also contrasts the findingsof science as the "here and now" of man's understanding with the ongoing activityof science as the open-ended search for truth, and he undertakes to demonstrate that the factual, individual isand the ethical, societal oughtcan be derived each from the other. A mathematician by training, Bronowski published poetry as well as books on literature and intellectual history. In addition to those mentioned above, The Common Sense of Scienceand Science and Human Valuesare among the most widely read of his books. Before his death in 1974, he was for many years a Senior Fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where his formal area of research was concerned with the questions of human specificity and uniqueness. Clearly, his interests ranged far beyond this area, and in many directions.

Author : Adrian Bardon
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1136596887
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Future of the Philosophy of Time written by Adrian Bardon and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last century has seen enormous progress in our understanding of time. This volume features original essays by the foremost philosophers of time discussing the goals and methodology of the philosophy of time, and examining the best way to move forward with regard to the field's core issues. The collection is unique in combining cutting edge work on time with a focus on the big picture of time studies as a discipline. The major questions asked include: What are the implications of relativity and quantum physics on our understanding of time? Is the passage of time real, or just a subjective phenomenon? Are the past and future real, or is the present all that exists? If the future is real and unchanging (as contemporary physics seems to suggest), how is free will possible? Since only the present moment is perceived, how does the experience as we know it come about? How does experience take on its character of a continuous flow of moments or events? What explains the apparent one-way direction of time? Is time travel a logical/metaphysical possibility?

Author : David J. Chalmers
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393635813
Total Pages : 544 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy written by David J. Chalmers and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading philosopher takes a mind-bending journey through virtual worlds, illuminating the nature of reality and our place within it. Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already. Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis. Studded with illustrations that bring philosophical issues to life, Reality+ is a major statement that will shape discussion of philosophy, science, and technology for years to come.

Author : Paul S. Loeb
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 110842225X
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nietzsche's Metaphilosophy written by Paul S. Loeb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renowned scholars explore and discuss Nietzsche's desire to challenge the very conception of philosophy, and his methods of doing so.

Author : Gregory Bruce Smith
Publisher : University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN 13 : 0268103925
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Political Philosophy and the Republican Future written by Gregory Bruce Smith and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2018-07-25 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are we moving inevitably into an irreversible era of postnationalism and globalism? In Political Philosophy and the Republican Future, Gregory Bruce Smith asks, if participation in self-government is not central to citizens’ vision of the political good, is despotism inevitable? Smith's study evolves around reconciling the early republican tradition in Greece and Rome as set out by authors such as Aristotle and Cicero, and a more recent tradition shaped by thinkers such as Machiavelli, Locke, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Madison, and Rousseau. Gregory Smith adds a further layer of complexity by analyzing how the republican and the larger philosophical tradition have been called into question by the critiques of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and their various followers. For Smith, the republican future rests on the future of the tradition of political philosophy. In this book he explores the nature of political philosophy and the assumptions under which that tradition can be an ongoing tradition rather than one that is finished. He concludes that political philosophy must recover its phenomenological roots and attempt to transcend the self-legislating constructivism of modern philosophy. Forgetting our past traditions, he asserts, will only lead to despotism, the true enemy of all permutations of republicanism. Cicero's thought is presented as a classic example of the phenomenological approach to political philosophy. A return to the architectonic understanding of political philosophy exemplified by Cicero is, Smith argues, the key to the republican future.

Author : Thomas Dick
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Philosophy of a Future State written by Thomas Dick and published by . This book was released on 1829 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Jonathan Head
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1793640076
Total Pages : 203 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Schopenhauer and the Nature of Philosophy written by Jonathan Head and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-10-20 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is philosophy? What can philosophy offer us? What brings us to think philosophically? Arthur Schopenhauer’s writings offer fascinating answers to these questions that have largely been overlooked until now. In Schopenhauer and the Nature of Philosophy, Jonathan Head explores the surprisingly rich and compelling metaphilosophy that underlies Schopenhauer’s work and argues that it offers a vital key to unlocking many of the mysteries that surround his ideas. Schopenhauer understands philosophy as grounded in a deep wonder about life and the world that is universal to the human experience, as well as meeting a fundamental need for both explanation and consolation. This account of the nature of philosophy leads to further important discussions concerning the relationship between philosophy and religion, the value of mysticism, and the possibility of social progress. Through examining Schopenhauer’s account of how and why philosophy is done, this book sheds crucial new light on a thinker whose ideas continue to both provoke and inspire.

Author : Jürgen Habermas
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 074569411X
Total Pages : 136 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Future of Human Nature written by Jürgen Habermas and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-10-15 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent developments in biotechnology and genetic research are raising complex ethical questions concerning the legitimate scope and limits of genetic intervention. As we begin to contemplate the possibility of intervening in the human genome to prevent diseases, we cannot help but feel that the human species might soon be able to take its biological evolution in its own hands. ‘Playing God’ is the metaphor commonly used for this self-transformation of the species, which, it seems, might soon be within our grasp. In this important new book, Jürgen Habermas – the most influential philosopher and social thinker in Germany today – takes up the question of genetic engineering and its ethical implications and subjects it to careful philosophical scrutiny. His analysis is guided by the view that genetic manipulation is bound up with the identity and self-understanding of the species. We cannot rule out the possibility that knowledge of one’s own hereditary factors may prove to be restrictive for the choice of an individual’s way of life and may undermine the symmetrical relations between free and equal human beings. In the concluding chapter – which was delivered as a lecture on receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for 2001 – Habermas broadens the discussion to examine the tension between science and religion in the modern world, a tension which exploded, with such tragic violence, on September 11th.